Get the Client's Time in PHP

Find your user's local time with PHP pages. 

Step 1. Any current time will do. 

To get time and date on php,

First you use the “unix timestamp” ---

time();

--- to get the number of milliseconds or seconds since 1970 and it’s in Utah somewhere (UTC).

Then to get those milliseconds into a date formate with years, months day of month, day of week, hour minute, you use:

localtime(time(), TRUE);

And this gets you the day and hour in Utah somewhere (UTC).

Step 2. Personalized time for a single page. 

But to get the day and hour in your preferred time zone, there are two options because the client doesn’t automatically tell the HTTP server where or when the client exists.

1.  Either use Javascript to get the local time from the client. 
2. Or get the actual timezone from the client, transfer that via a new request to the server and resend the properly timed page.

Step 2.A Prepare for ancient  browser with no javascript. 

If the User client is without Javascript (lynx), then I put a html form select box with all of the names from 
DateTimeZone::listIdentifiers(); (:: is used to access static (server binary) functions. ) $timezone_identifiers = DateTimeZone::listIdentifiers();
echo "<form method=\"GET\" action=\"step20.php\"> <select name=\"TMZ\" count=5 >";
$n = count($timezone_identifiers );
for ($i=0; $i < $n ; $i++) {
echo "<option
value=\"$timezone_identifiers[$i]\">$timezone_identifiers[$i]</option><br>"; }
echo "</select><input type=\"submit\" value=\"submit\"></form>";
}

Step 2.B Get local time from Unknown Visitor with Javascript when they first reach the page .

But if the User has Javascript, then the javascript can upon loading, sends  the time necessary for your  purposes in a cookie and reload the page all without the client human noticing. This means the server gets two requests for the same page in the same visitation.

So that means that the php page which runs your page must control the flow of procedures with a if-else chain depending on the either the presence of a 1 minute cookie, or otherwise.
When php runs, if there is no 1 minute cookie then  this is either the first time the client has fetched the page, or the client is unable to run Java-script as in the case of lynx or command-line browsers.  If the client is able to run java-script, without checking for some sort of Java-script enabled sign, the first fetch presents the browser with a java-script firstly to get the check that document.cookie doesn’t have “Hour=x;” if it doesn’t , then this is definitely the first fetch. The <Script> sits above the <?PHP for your human readability in understanding the flow.

Var i1 = new Date();
document.cookie = “Hour=”+ i1.getHours; cookie=”Date=”+ i1.getDate();

 and return as a cookie automatically to the server’s php page, by location.reload(); because each time the HTTP sends a request it sends the cookie too. And vice versa.

Step 3 Visitor automatically makes itself known for the same page

 This location.reload () is the second request and now the php page can find
isset( $_COOKIE[“Hour”]
. without a proper if-else-ifelse chain, this might work like a flip-flop. But time isn’t illogical quantum uncertainty , so we use the ifelse daisy-chain.

$thishour = $_COOKIE[“Hour”];
Now, if there is not $_COOKIE[“Hour”] then there’s no  javascript and the php if chain moves  on to dealing with lynx  by checking for $_GET[“TimeZone”]

If not that means our <form method=”get” action=”index.php”> hasn’t sent a http://bob.com/index.php?timezone=Africa/AddisAbaba  request.    

So if there’s no $_COOKIE[“Hour”] and no $_GET[“TimeZONE”] then we print simply a selection.

When there is $_GET[‘timezone’] we will get the

date_default_timezone_set($_GET["TMZ"]);

                $D2 = new DateTimeZone($_GET["TMZ"]);

                $D4 = new DateTime("now", $D2);

                $todays = localtime(date_timestamp_get($D4),1); 

 $thishour = $todays["tm_hour"];

Viola, thus you have the ability for the client to send the local time to the php server, regardless of how shocking the client is. If the client is simply an FTP file puller like TELNET, the human can read the pulled file and find all possible cities to choose from in the form.  (to send a adhoc  Request with ?TMZ=Europe/Stockholm

This causes a negligible delay of less 1-2 seconds per visitor.