John Davidson

Message:

Here is my issue :

Our server is running on a date with a delay;

$now = new \DateTime("now", new \DateTimeZone('Europe/Paris') );

Meaning even if it's actually 4 pm in France, our server is gonna say it's 2pm (or may be 6pm, I can't remember the direction...but we have a 2h difference).

It's not due to php, it's due to our server configuration.

When the clock changed and we went to winter time a few weeks ago...that delta difference went from 2h diff to 1h diff.

Which mean I had to adapt my code

Going from

$nowBeforeDelta = new \DateTime("now", new \DateTimeZone($gmt) );

$now = $nowBeforeDelta->sub(new \DateInterval("PT2H"));

TO

$nowBeforeDelta = new \DateTime("now", new \DateTimeZone($gmt) );

$now = $nowBeforeDelta->sub(new \DateInterval("PT1H"));

This way I'm receiving the hour correctly accordingly to the server...but...you saw where I'm going...once summer time will be coming again...I will have to change again.

So, Here comes my question : Do I have a way to know, given a specific date, if that date is in winter time or summer time ? Not getting the date and hour...just getting a response to the question winter or summer ?

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My Answer:
Yes, you can determine if a specific date is in winter time or summer time by checking the offset of the timezone at that date. Here is an example code snippet to achieve this:

php
$date = new \DateTime('2022-01-01', new \DateTimeZone('Europe/Paris'));
$offset = $date->getOffset();

if ($offset == 3600) {
echo 'Summer time';
} else {
echo 'Winter time';
}


In this code, we create a DateTime object for a specific date and timezone (in this case, 'Europe/Paris'). We then get the offset of the timezone at that date using the `getOffset()` method. If the offset is 3600 seconds (1 hour), it means the date is in summer time. Otherwise, it is in winter time. You can adjust the date in the code to check for different dates.