Time Zone Question

[JYM]

Hi

I have a mysql database which has dates and times in it, which is displayed on my website.

Is there a way to grab the user's local machine, determine the time offset, then apply it so that all the dates on the site are according to the timezone?

This will probably require javascript or php, and I know for SURE that it works in Flash because in the actionscript i typed in a few lines and it displayed the local machine time. When I changed my computer's time, it would change in the flash file.

 

[mikesherov]

the reason why the flash displays the right time is because the value you are displaying IS the local time (which in flash and javascript use the machine local time because they are apps whihc run on your computer... javascript and flash are client side programs).

However, PHP has no access to your local machine because it's a preprocessor... all code is run before being sent to the local machine, i.e. server side.

You could use IP to location technology to determine the user's timezone, than transform the dates based on the timezone difference. Be careful to watch out for locations that don't observe Daylight Savings Time!

 

[JYM]

So is there a way to capture the time on the local machine, send it to the server, then have the server process it and change it accordingly so all the dates/times display correctly to that user?

Then..say..do this to each individual user (1000s...).

 

[Jim_]

if the user doesn't have the cookie set {
use javascript to determine user's timezone, set it into cookie, then reload page
} else {
read cookie for user's timezone and display corrected time
}