php convert datetime to UTC

Using DateTime:

$given = new DateTime("2014-12-12 14:18:00");
echo $given->format("Y-m-d H:i:s e") . "\n"; // 2014-12-12 14:18:00 Asia/Bangkok

$given->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone("UTC"));
echo $given->format("Y-m-d H:i:s e") . "\n"; // 2014-12-12 07:18:00 UTC

Use strtotime to generate a timestamp from the given string (interpreted as local time) and use gmdate to get it as a formatted UTC date back.

Example

As requested, here’s a simple example:

echo gmdate('d.m.Y H:i', strtotime('2012-06-28 23:55'));

Try the getTimezone and setTimezone, see the example

(But this does use a Class)

UPDATE:

Without any classes you could try something like this:

$the_date = strtotime("2010-01-19 00:00:00");
echo(date_default_timezone_get() . "<br />");
echo(date("Y-d-mTG:i:sz",$the_date) . "<br />");
echo(date_default_timezone_set("UTC") . "<br />");
echo(date("Y-d-mTG:i:sz", $the_date) . "<br />");

NOTE: You might need to set the timezone back to the original as well

Do this way:

gmdate('Y-m-d H:i:s', $timestamp)

or simply

gmdate('Y-m-d H:i:s')

to get "NOW" in UTC.

Check the reference:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.gmdate.php