What is the recommended approach for handling timezones in PHP when working with date and time data from external sources?

When working with date and time data from external sources in PHP, it is recommended to always store and manipulate dates and times in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) to avoid confusion and ensure consistency across different timezones. To handle timezones, you can use the DateTime class in PHP along with the setTimezone() method to convert dates and times to the desired timezone.

// Assuming $externalDateTime contains the date and time data from an external source
$externalDateTime = new DateTime('2022-01-01 12:00:00', new DateTimeZone('UTC'));

// Convert the date and time to a specific timezone (e.g., New York)
$externalDateTime->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('America/New_York'));

// Output the date and time in the desired timezone
echo $externalDateTime->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');