Use of date(), and therefore time(), in the PEAR Date class

Hi all, I've run into a bit of a doozy that I can't seem to figure out. I'm using the PEAR Date class to deal with some time/date requirements for some code, and everything has been working (to the best of my knowledge) really well, up until now. I decided to extend my code test suite (using Simple Test, http://www.lastcraft.com/simple_test.php), by caluclating the execution time. I did this by: 1) Creating a Date object at the start of the test suite, via "new Date()"; 2) Creating another Date object at the end of the test suite, via "new Date()"; 3) Creating a Date_Span object, via "new Date_Span()"; 4) Setting the Date_Span object's span by using the Date_Span::setFromDateDiff() method, with the two Date objects. Finally, I can use the Date_Span object to output the time taken to run the test suite, using the Date_Span::format() method. However, this gave me a run time that was clearly wrong, so I started looking into why, and discovered that the Date object I create at the end of the test suite run is one hour earlier than the current time. I have traced the code through the execution of the creation of the Date objects, and it is correctly setting the time zone as UTC during the creation of *both* Date objects -- however, as each Date object is created with the code "new Date()", the PEAR Date class uses a call to "date("Y-m-d H:i:s")" (and, by association, to "time()") in order to get the current time, and use it to set the properties of the Date object. It is the call to PHP's date()/time() function that returns a time that is one hour earlier than my system clock. What I don't understand is *why* this is happening. If I call the time() function directly before/after the creation of the second call to Date (which is the one that generates the incorrect date), I actually get the correct time! Can anyone please suggest what might be causing date()/time() to (sometimes) return an incorrect time inside the Date class? Cheers, -- Andrew Hill Developer Awarez Ltd. Kirkman House, 12-14 Whitfield Street, London W1T 2RF T: +44 (0)20 7299 7370 F: +44 (0)20 7299 7374