Formatting dates to use timezone

Working with dates can get complicated when you need a time to change depending on the time of year for GMT timezones. Thankfully DateTime makes it easier.

First create a new instance of DateTimeZone and pass in the timezone.

Next create a new instance of DateTime and pass in tthe date and timezone, then all that is left is to format the date. 

//set a date and time
$sendDate = '2019-05-16 17:30:00';

//set the timezone
$timezone = new \DateTimeZone('GMT');

//create a new instance of DateTime with the provided date and timezone
$dateTime = new \DateTime($sendDate, $timezone);

//format the date, in this case 2019-05-16T17:30:00
$sendDate = $dateTime->format('Y-m-d\TH:i:s');