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Managing time and date-related operations is an important component of web development since it ensures accurate data representation and functionality. Setting the default timezone in CodeIgniter 4 is critical to ensuring that date and time functions work consistently across your application. You may verify that timestamps and time-based calculations are accurate and synchronised by selecting the default timezone.

By default in CodeIgniter 4 application timezone is UTC.

We will walk you through the process of setting the default timezone in CodeIgniter 4 in this article. We’ll look at how to use configuration files to set the default timezone, ensuring that your application’s date and time operations are in sync with the intended timezone.

Let’s get started.

CodeIgniter 4 Installation

To create a CodeIgniter 4 setup run this given command into your shell or terminal. Please make sure composer should be installed.

composer create-project codeigniter4/appstarter codeigniter-4

Assuming you have successfully installed application into your local system.

Environment (.env) Setup

When we install CodeIgniter 4, we will have env file at root. To use the environment variables means using variables at global scope we need to do env to .env

Either we can do via renaming file as simple as that. Also we can do by terminal command.

Open project in terminal

cp env .env

Above command will create a copy of env file to .env file. Now we are ready to use environment variables.

Enable Development Mode

CodeIgniter starts up in production mode by default. You need to make it in development mode to see any error if you are working with application.

Open .env file from root.

# CI_ENVIRONMENT = production

 // Do it to 
 
CI_ENVIRONMENT = development

Now application is in development mode.

How to find default Application timezone?

Open App.php file from /app/Config folder.

Inside this file, search for $appTimezone, you will see the application default timezone.

public $appTimezone = 'UTC';

When you work with the date and time functions, by default it will pick the application’s default timezone.

Here, you can find few more articles over Date & time class of CodeIgniter 4.

Methods To Change Application Timezone

There are several ways to change the default application timezone but here you will see two methods.

Set User timezone from App.php
Using PHP function to set timezone

Method #1: Set User Timezone from App.php

You can directly use App.php file to change the application timezone to user specific.

Let’s say you want to set the application timezone to India.

Open App.php from /app/Config folder and update the value of appTimezone.

public $appTimezone = 'Asia/Kolkata';

This timezone settings will be global. It means for entire application the default timezone will be Asia/Kolkata

Method #2: Using PHP function to set Timezone

You can use PHP function date_default_timezone_set() to set timezone. You can call this php function anywhere means at parent controller of application or to any specific controller.

Open BaseController.php file from /app/Controllers folder.

BaseController is the default parent controller for all controllers in CodeIgniter 4.

//...
public function initController(RequestInterface $request, ResponseInterface $response, LoggerInterface $logger)
{
  //...
  
  date_default_timezone_set('Asia/Kolkata'); // Added user timezone
}

Also you can use this PHP function to any specific controller’s constructor method to set timezone.

How to get Application default Timezone?

In CodeIgniter 4, a helper function available to get the application default timezone.

This function will returns whatever you have inside App.php file.

//...

echo app_timezone();

That’s it.

We hope this article helped you to learn Change Default Timezone in CodeIgniter 4 Tutorial in a very detailed way.

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