What are the potential pitfalls of not properly defining the timezone when comparing dates in PHP?

When comparing dates in PHP without properly defining the timezone, you may encounter issues with daylight saving time changes or discrepancies between dates in different timezones. To avoid this, always set the timezone explicitly when working with dates in PHP to ensure accurate comparisons. 

$date1 = new DateTime('2022-01-01', new DateTimeZone('America/New_York'));
$date2 = new DateTime('2022-01-01', new DateTimeZone('UTC'));

$date1->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('UTC'));

if ($date1 == $date2) {
    echo 'Dates are equal';
} else {
    echo 'Dates are not equal';
}

Keywords

Timezone Dates PHP Comparison Error

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