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Request #81194 Get Timezone abbreviation
Submitted: 2021-06-23 07:58 UTC Modified: 2021-06-23 09:11 UTC
From: syl dot fabre at gmail dot com Assigned:
Status: Not a bug Package: Date/time related
PHP Version: Irrelevant OS: Irrelevant
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
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 [2021-06-23 07:58 UTC] syl dot fabre at gmail dot com 
Description:
------------
PHP uses the tz database for timezone with names like America/New_York.

But most people in the US use abbreviated names like EST (for instance https://www.juneteenthny.com/schedule) 

This abbreviated name can be found with (new \DateTime('now', 'America/New_York'))->format('T') as explained in this comment: https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.timezone-abbreviations-list.php#97472

I would expect to get this abbreviation from a public method of \DateTimeZone with something like this:
$tz = new \DateTimeZone('America/New_York');
$tz->getAbbreviation();

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 [2021-06-23 08:28 UTC] derick@php.net
-Status: Open +Status: Not a bug
 [2021-06-23 08:28 UTC] derick@php.net 
Thank you for taking the time to write to us, but this is not
a bug. Please double-check the documentation available at
http://www.php.net/manual/ and the instructions on how to report
a bug at http://bugs.php.net/how-to-report.php

The abbreviation depends on the date, for 
example whether Daylight Saving Time is 
in effect (EDT vs EST), and also on 
historical data.

Abbreviations are not uniquely 
identifying a specific timezone either 
(PST can also be Pakistan Standard Time). 

Because these abbreviations are strictly 
display only marks (like am/pm), if would 
not be appropriate to have a specific 
method for this, and certainly not 
straight on DateTimezone.
 [2021-06-23 09:11 UTC] syl dot fabre at gmail dot com 
This was not a bug report but a feature request :)

Thank you for the explanation about daylight saving.
I understand now why the abbreviation comes from \DateTime::format() and cannot come from the \DateTimeZone itself.

have a nice day
 
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