What are the best practices for handling date conversions in PHP?

When handling date conversions in PHP, it's important to ensure that you are using the correct date format and timezone to avoid any discrepancies. One of the best practices is to always explicitly set the timezone before performing any date conversions to ensure consistency across different environments.

// Set the timezone to the desired value
date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');

// Convert a date from one format to another
$date = '2022-12-31';
$newDate = date('m/d/Y', strtotime($date));

echo $newDate; // Output: 12/31/2022