DrupalDateTime::createFromFormat() returns the wrong time value

Question

I want to get the date of last monday at 00:00:00 in a specific timezone. When I try this:

DrupalDateTime::createFromFormat('U', strtotime('last week monday'))->setTime(0, 0, 0)->setTimezone(new \DateTimeZone('America/New_York'))->render()

The result is:

2022-06-12 20:00:00 America/New_York

Which is actually Sunday at 10 PM.

How can I get it to return 2022-06-13 00:00:00 America/New_York instead?

This "corrects" what I was seeing, but feels wrong:

    date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');
    $from = DrupalDateTime::createFromFormat('U', strtotime('last week monday'))->getTimestamp();
    $to = DrupalDateTime::createFromFormat('U', strtotime('last monday'))->getTimestamp();

This gives me:

June 13th, 2022 12:00 AM
June 20th, 2022 12:00 AM

Which is last week monday through last monday (this week). Is calling ->format() setting the timezone offset twice, perhaps?

If I format this timestamp using:

DrupalDateTime::createFromFormat('U', $returned_value)->format('F j, Y H:i:s e')

I get this on the screen:

June 13, 2022 04:00:00 +00:00

The server is in UTC time. I simply want the timestamp of a date, without offsets applied (but correctly formatted to the user).

Edit:

The objective is to query for entities in Drupal created in the last week (starting on Monday), at midnight (00:00:00) through the following Monday at midnight, in this specific timezone.

Answer 1

I can see nothing unexpected. Midnight in UTC is 8 PM the day before in New York, at least in the summer time.

Timestamps are always UTC. This is the reason why your second attempt

$from = DrupalDateTime::createFromFormat('U', strtotime('last week monday'))->getTimestamp();

can be reduced to

$from = strtotime('last week monday');

without changing the result.

Original question

How can I get it to return 2022-06-13 00:00:00 America/New_York instead?

In this case don't convert to UTC timestamps. You can specify the timezone (the Drupal enhanced DrupalDateTime object accepts the timezone as string) when creating the object:

$from = (new DrupalDateTime('last week monday', 'America/New_York'))->render();

results in

"2022-06-13 00:00:00 America/New_York"

Which will internally use a different timestamp than before, but this is only relevant if you convert it to a different timezone, for example to store it in the database or use it in a query against stored values.

Updated OP in the comments

The goal is to query for nodes created Monday to Monday, which only happens in this timezone in EDT.

The Created field in nodes is a timestamp field, so in this case you need the UTC timestamp:

$from = (new DrupalDateTime('last week monday', 'America/New_York'))->getTimestamp();

As you have already noticed in the second attempt, using legacy PHP date_default_timezone_set()/strtotime(), this will be indeed 4 hours ahead of New York time.

Answer 2

I tried different snippets, but they all output a time for June 12, not for June 13.

echo DrupalDateTime::createFromFormat('U', strtotime('last week monday'), new \DateTimeZone('America/New_York'))
  ->setTime(0, 0, 0)
  ->render(), "\n";
// 2022-06-12 00:00:00 +00:00

echo DrupalDateTime::createFromFormat('U', strtotime('last week monday'))
  ->setTimezone(new \DateTimeZone('America/New_York'))
  ->setTime(0, 0, 0)
  ->render(), "\n";
// 2022-06-12 00:00:00 America/New_York

echo DrupalDateTime::createFromTimestamp(strtotime('last week monday'), new \DateTimeZone('America/New_York'))
  ->setTime(0, 0, 0)
  ->render(), "\n";
// 2022-06-12 00:00:00 America/New_York

echo DrupalDateTime::createFromTimestamp(strtotime('last week monday'), new \DateTimeZone('America/New_York'))
  ->render(), "\n";
// 2022-06-12 18:00:00 America/New_York

The only way to get the expected result is to set the default timezone with date_default_timezone_set(). In that case, the following code outputs the expected result.

date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');
echo DrupalDateTime::createFromTimestamp(strtotime('last week monday'))->render(), "\n";
// 2022-06-13 00:00:00 America/New_York

Notice that isn't necessary to call setTime(0, 0, 0), since strtotime('last week monday') returns a timestamp for midnight of last week Monday. (It can be verified with echo date("F j, Y, g:i a", strtotime("last week monday")), "\n"; which outputs June 13, 2022, 12:00 am.)

Answer 3

DrupalDateTime::createFromFormat() is basically a wrapper for PHP's createFromFormat.

A search of the PHP docs reveals this comment:

createFromFormat('U') has a strange behaviour: it ignores the datetimezone and the resulting DateTime object will always have GMT+0000 timezone.

So, PHP bug or feature, you decide.

To create a DateTime object with a time based on a string, as a general approach:

1. Instantiate the DateTime object with the timezone you want.
2. Change the object's time.

Source: I spent the past two years working on some scheduling software implemented in Drupal that does a lot of date manipulation, and ran into tons of gotchas like this.

EDIT

The objective is to query for entities in Drupal created in the last week (starting on Monday), at midnight (00:00:00) through the following Monday at midnight, in this specific timezone.

Drupal always stores dates in the database as UTC. So if you are doing an EntityQuery, here is one way to do it:

1. Create a DateTime object. Set the timezone to the desired timezone.
2. Set the DateTime to the desired date and time.
3. Change the DateTime's timezone to UTC: $datetime->setTimeZone(timezone_open(DateTimeItemInterface::STORAGE_TIMEZONE));
4. Get a proper string from the DateTime: $datetime->format((DateTimeItemInterface::DATETIME_STORAGE_FORMAT).
5. Run the EntityQuery with that string.