Yii2: display dates in user time zone - php

Question

In my DB I store all datetime fields in UTC format. Also, I have the ability to change default time zone by users. Each user can have own time zone, different from UTC.
How shall I display all model datetime fields in this case?
I have an idea. To do this action for each ActiveRecord model:
public function init()
{
parent::init();
$this->on(ActiveRecord::EVENT_AFTER_FIND, function($event) {
$this->created_date = (new \DateTime('now', new \DateTimeZone("Europe/Kiev")))->format("Y-m-d H:i:s");
});
}
But I'm not sure it's the best way for big amount of models...

Answer 1

if the dates are stored in UTC why not append the string UTC along the time and display it
$time = strtotime($this->created_at.' UTC');
date("Y-m-d H:i:s", $time);
Your code will look like this
public function init()
{
parent::init();
$this->on(ActiveRecord::EVENT_AFTER_FIND, function($event) {
$time = strtotime($model->create_at.' UTC');
$this->created_date = date("Y-m-d H:i:s", $time);
});
}
if I would do it I would just create a separate Helper and use it to display the date in the local format rather than EVENT_AFTER_FIND
Another alternative is to use this Extension

Answer 2

Search for frontend/config/main.php
Try putting in
return [
...
'components' => [
...
a FORMATTER part like
'formatter' => [
'dateFormat' => 'dd/MM/yyyy',
'datetimeFormat' => 'dd/MM/yyyy H:i:s',
'timeFormat' => 'H:i:s',
'locale' => 'it-IT',
'decimalSeparator' => ',',
'thousandSeparator' => '.',
'currencyCode' => 'EUR',
'numberFormatterSymbols' => [
NumberFormatter::CURRENCY_SYMBOL => '€',
],
'timeZone' => 'Europe/Rome',
],
Set your parameters like TimeZone, Currency, etc...
NB: I dont remember but maybe the NumberFormatter part need some other setup so delete the numberFormatterSymbols part if it give to you an error