Eloquent Carbon and displaying dates in a users local timezone

I don't understand what you mean? It says on the second line the users timezone is stored in the database.

Any other storing of dates would be things like comment->time_added so i'm not sure what you're suggesting to store in a field in the database?

If you do mean store the users timezone in the users table, as I am doing, then the answer "store it in the database and use that" is literally just a rephrasing of my question which is "I have the users timezone stored, how do I use it", but not actually an instructive answer.

I'm not sure if i've misunderstood you or if you're reply has no relevance because as you said you didn't actually read my post. Either way i'm confused by your reply.

@jlrdw Seriously? He just says that he had the local timezone in the database.. Please don't reply if you don't read! How is the helping the OP?

Now for your problem you can set the timezone after you set the format

$date = Carbon::createFromFormat('Y-m-d H:i:s', '2015-10-23 17:64:00', 'Europe/Amsterdam');
$date->setTimezone('UTC');

You can for example create a helper function to make this easy in your views ;)

When echo'ing the time, do this:

{{ $model->created_at->setTimezone(Auth::user()->timezone)->toDateTimeString() }}

@jlrdw date time stores as the imputed date time not utc time. If not careful you could end up with more issues trying to convert to a users local time. Timestamp sets the time stamp on a universal way that is easier to manipulate.

@jekinney Laravel stores the timestamps as DATETIME properly using the default timezone (set in config/app.php) in all cases. If you default timezone is UTC (as per the default Laravel install), you will always have the UTC data in your database.

There is nothing wrong with DATETIME here.

This is correct for actions performed on the system where the system itself determines what time the event occurs. If the user enters a time then this should ideally be converted to local system time, and then converted back in order to display to the user. It really depends if the field forms part of the business rules.

For instance, if I schedule a report to run at 9am, (by entering that in a date/time field) and I happen to be in a different timezone then it will need to be converted to the servers time so that the server knows when to send the report.

I prefer all the times on the server to be in the server's time (however they were created) and then converted when rendered out

@Francismori7

Hate to call you out but it defiantly sets timestamp and not datetime. The fact that Laravel manipulates it, yes, but you still have to keep in mind what MySQL does when not manipulated (i.e. Query builder insert or using raw and/or straight MySQL).

@jekinney No offense taken - I just took a look in my database and yes! You are right, they are indeed TIMESTAMPS. Sorry.

Sorry for the delayed reply, it seems I stopped getting email notifications for some reason.

It seems the recommended solution is to set timezone manually each you want to display a date?

Obviously this is time consuming so we want a helper function such as:

Time Published: {{ show_date($article->time_published, 'd-m-Y H:i:s') }}

show_date($date, $format) {
    return $date->setTimezone(Auth::user()->timezone)->format($format);
}

Or even better to handle all possibilities:

show_date($date, $format) {
    if(!($date instanceof Carbon)) {
        if(is_numeric($date)) {
             // Assume Timestamp
             $date = Carbon::createFromTimestamp($date);
        } else {
            $date = Carbon::parse($date);
        }
    }

    return $date->setTimezone(Auth::user()->timezone)->format($format);
}

Is that generally the best implementation then?

Possibly a blade syntax such as @date() might be better, but I haven't had the time to look into extending blade yet.

I spent several hours trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, as I kept getting the error message:

"FatalErrorException in 573ab1ec620aca0ede57c90e557ae02937b375bf.php line 16:
Call to a member function setTimezone() on string"

I tried so many different things that I'm embarassed to even mention some of the things I did. When it all resolved and I had figured out my issue, what I found was that you CAN NOT use ->setTimezone after you use ->format. If I put ->setTimezone before using ->format, it works perfectly.

In my code, I had a blade file that pulled out all $users as $user with a foreach loop, and the WORKING CODE ended up like this:

    @foreach ($company->users as $user)
        {{--*/
            $date = Carbon\Carbon::createFromFormat('Y-m-d H:i:s', $user->last_login_time, 'UTC')->setTimezone('America/Chicago')->format('F d, Y @ h:i:s A T');
        /*--}}

        {{ $date }}
@endforeach     

You can ignore the $company-> part, as it's specific to my application. The above code was located in a blade file in the @section('content') section. I used {{--/ insert-code-here /--}} for this because I was performing PHP within the blade file. You can do this with <?= insert-code-here ?> as well, but it will print the php code to the page once it loads. So to prevent that from happening, use the bracketed method.

I hope this helps another newbie like me so they don't spend so many hours looking into this. *Note: For reference, my \app\config\app.php file has the app timezone set to 'UTC' to avoid DST issues, and dates that I enter into the database are also in UTC for timestamp accuracy. My goal was to print something in a specific timezone (Central Standard Time, which I called with the 'America/Chicago' timezone in the code above, while also displaying it in an updated format).

I've displayed the the local time by saving the timezone in session variable with help of moment.js, here is the steps:

1 - use momentjs cdn (or with npm as you like)

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.19.0/moment.min.js"></script>
    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment-timezone/0.5.13/moment-timezone-with-data.js"></script>

2 - In login.blade.php make a hidden input within login form

<input type="hidden" name="timezone" id="timezone">

and push this script

var timezone = moment.tz.guess();
$('#timezone').val(timezone);

now we have a timezone variable in the login request.

3 - We'll access this variable in AuthenticatesUsers trait in LoginController

/**
     * The user has been authenticated.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @param  mixed  $user
     * @return mixed
     */
    protected function authenticated(Request $request, $user)
    {
        session(['timezone' => $request->timezone]); // saving to session
    }

4 - Finally to view any date as local time just add

$date->timezone(session('timezone'));

Note: Make sure that $data is a Carbon instance, otherwise you'll get using timezone method on string error, in this case just parse it Carbon::parse($date)->timezone(session('timezone'));

Still not sure if there is a better way to do it, so Im using a variation of this.

Helper Function

/**
 * Convert the given date to the $timezone or logged in users timezone.
 *
 * @param mixed $date A Carbon date or a parsable date format.
 * @param string $timezone A PHP timezone. If null it will use the logged in users timezone.
 * @return string The localized date.
 */
function localizeDate($date, $timezone = null)
{
    if (!($date instanceof Carbon)) {
        $date = is_numeric($date) ? Carbon::createFromTimestamp($date) : Carbon::parse($date);
    }

    return $date->setTimezone($timezone ?? (Auth::check() ? Auth::user()->timezone : 'UTC'));
}

/**
 * Convert the given date to the $timezone or logged in users timezone.
 * Then format it to the given format.
 *
 * @param mixed $date A Carbon date, array of parameters or a parsable date format.
 * @param string $format A PHP date time format.
 * @param string $timezone A PHP timezone. If null it will use the logged in users timezone.
 * @return string The formatted date.
 */
function localizeDateFormat($date, $format = 'jS M Y, g:ia', $timezone = null)
{
    // Support array input as primary arg
    if (is_array($date) && !empty($date)) {

        // If format exists
        if (count($date) >= 2) {
            $format = $date[1];
        }

        // If timezone exists
        if (count($date) >= 3) {
            $timezone = $date[2];
        }

        $date = $date[0];
    }

    return localizeDate($date, $timezone)->format($format);
}

Blade Directive (AppServiceProvider.php)

    /**
     * Bootstrap any application services.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function boot()
    {
        Blade::directive('datetime', function ($expression) {
            return "<?php echo e(localizeDateFormat(" . $expression . ")); ?>";
        });
    }

Using Blade Directive

@datetime(Auth::user()->created_at)

Using Blade Directive (Custom Format)

@datetime([Auth::user()->created_at, 'd-m-Y H:i:s'])

@robjbrain I did it by getters in Model. For example in Order Model:

    private function localTimezone($value = null)
    {
        return $value ? Carbon::parse($value)->setTimezone(auth()->user()->timezone ?? 'UTC')->toDateTimeString() : null;
    }

    public function getCreatedAtAttribute($value)
    {
        return $this->localTimezone($value);
    }

    public function getUpdatedAtAttribute($value)
    {
        return $this->localTimezone($value);
    }

    public function getBlockedAtAttribute($value)
    {
        return $this->localTimezone($value);
    }

In User model I have a timezone column which fills on user registration. Now when Laravel returns $order or paginated $orders variable it automatically converts dates for authenticated user's timezone. It is very convenient!