Question

I have a page that shows future events along with the date (server time).
I need some method to display the date in user time.

Example:
Oct, 26 13:48:23 (server)
Oct, 26 14:48:23 (user time (UTC +1)) -> event info

What I have so far:

<?php
    $sql=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table") or die("Come back later");
    while($row=mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {
        echo date('M, d H:i:s', strtotime ($row['date'])).' -> '.$row['info'];
    }
?>

With the diffence I want to detect user timezone.

Thank you.

EDIT
I know I should not be using mysql_*

Answer 1

If you’re ok with doing the conversion to the user’s time zone in JavaScript, you could do the following:

PHP

<?php
    $sql=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table") or die("Come back later");
    while($row=mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {
        echo '<span class="date">' . date('M, d H:i:s', strtotime ($row['date'])) . ' UTC</span> -> '.$row['info'];
    }
?>

JavaScript (With jQuery for Readability)

$(function(){
    $('.date').each(function(){
        var $this = $(this);

        // Parse the date string (the format you've given will 
        // work, and the added UTC above will give JavaScript 
        // some context)
        var dateVal = new Date($this.text());

        // JavaScript will convert it to the user's timezone when 
        // stringifying it (helped by the server timezone specified
        // in the PHP.
        $this.text(dateVal.toString()); 
    });
});

If you want to render the dates in the format: Oct, 26 13:48:23, you could do this:

var dateString = dateVal.toLocaleString();
var parts = /^\w+ (\w+ \d{1,2}) \d{4} (\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2})/.exec(dateString);
dateString = parts[1] + ' ' + parts[2];

Then use $this.text(dateString); to inject it into the dom.