Re: Dates ahead of time on PHP

> Date: Sunday, May 07, 2023 15:17:00 -0400 > From: paulf@quillandmouse.com > > On Sun, 7 May 2023 18:19:59 +0000 > Jānis Elmeris <janis.elmeris@lv.lv> wrote: > >> Was that setting unset also in your previous configuration? What >> PHP version was the previous one? > > Not sure the previous version. But no, it wasn't set in the prior > Debian installation. The value was commented out in the php.ini > file. The standard approach with most [application] config files is that if a setting is commented out it will use the [application] default (sometimes these are shown, sometimes not). The default for "date.timezone" is UTC: <https://www.php.net/manual/en/datetime.configuration.php#ini.date.timezone> There used to be a warning when that value wasn't set in the .ini, and so the default was used, but that was removed in 7.0: <https://www.php.net/ChangeLog-7.php> It looks like prior to 5.4 a TZ "guessing algorithm" was used if the date.timezone value wasn't set in the .ini. That was removed in 5.4 (march 2012), with UTC set as the default: <https://www.php.net/ChangeLog-5.php#5.4.0> So, the default has been UTC since 5.4, with the warning (if no value was set) in place from 5.4 to 7.0. There was actually a warning to not trust the system's timezone setting prior to 5.4. For ease of consistency I have always run all my servers as UTC, regardless of where they are located.