Set timezone for specific folder?

Question

I want to set a specific folder to another timezone in the php.ini file so I don't have to set it manually in each file within the folder.

[Date]
date.timezone = Europe/Berlin

Folder[Date] /* something like this? */
date.timezone = America/New_York

Can you explain what you mean by Folder? Do you mean a domain? — Mark Baker, Jul 22 '13 at 20:48
No, I mean a folder in a domain. I'm working on localhost and have a folder called "stocks," which I want in New York time. — John Smith, Jul 22 '13 at 20:49
then no, that makes no sense. how about explaining how the time is used for the particular files — , Jul 22 '13 at 20:49
In that case, can you explain what your folder structure represents? PHP doesn't have a concept of folders, it's a programming language; not a filesystem — Mark Baker, Jul 22 '13 at 20:49
date.timezone can be set on a per directory basis in htaccess. — Orangepill, Jul 22 '13 at 20:50
@MarkBaker sorry Mark, I'm not sure I follow. I have localhost/stocks and localhost/other_folders. — John Smith, Jul 22 '13 at 20:51
@OrangePill could you elaborate on this? Perhaps provide an answer :) — John Smith, Jul 22 '13 at 20:52
add `php_value date.timezone "America/New_York"` to .htaccess in that directory "should" work. — Orangepill, Jul 22 '13 at 20:53

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 22 '13 at 20:55

2

You should be able to use .htaccess to set the default timezone on a per directory basis.

Just add

php_value date.timezone "America/New_York"

to an .htaccess file in that directory and make sure your server supports per directory configuration.

answered Jul 22 '13 at 20:55

Orangepill

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score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:57

1

Use date_default_timezone_set in the scripts in that folder.

You can also set it in htaccess:

php_value date.timezone "America/New_York"

For this to work, you need to use mod_php in Apache. See also this question.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:57

Community

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answered Jul 22 '13 at 20:49

GolezTrol

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for every file? so... include a file that sets this in every file? that feels very redundant. – John Smith Jul 22 '13 at 20:51
2

Not every file, but every entry point. If every request runs through a single index.php, you can put it in there. If every script includes a general purpose library for connecting to a database or so, you can put it in there. If your scripts are actually completely separate scripts with nothing in common, then I think you're one of the very few. Most sites run through a common entry point script. – GolezTrol Jul 22 '13 at 20:53

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 22 '13 at 21:15

You can probably also use in the .htaccess file:

SetEnv TZ America/New_York

Which should work on every system, php_value may not work on certain servers. But I would really recommend using the normal php function:

date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');

http://php.net/manual/en/function.date-default-timezone-set.php

in a specific file that has the configuration specific to your script, and then just include the file in your other files.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 29 '20 at 09:56

These answers are all correct when using a webserver, however this doesn't work running a PHP CLI script, for ie. a cronjob. PHP would use the date.timezone setting defined in php.ini.

Best practice would be, to just call date_default_timezone_set on top of your application wrapper/bootstrap file.

date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');

Set timezone for specific folder?

4 Answers4