UTC Dates and localization

[grave iris]

OK, so I have a Tasks model and times really aren't important, due_date is casted as 'date:Y-m-d'. The problem though is that when you localize a date on output or even if you dont, if you created a task for Today, its stored as 2023-03-20 00:00:00 and because of that where were in North America, that localized date is now 2023-03-19 17:00:00, etc. Now this is an existing app, so have existing data. So if you create it today, its already past due, etc. Hope I am making sense. How should i go about tackling this? This is the current code they (us, I am new to the project) to set the date fetched to local based on the tenants saved timezone: ```php
public function localize($dateField = null)
{
$dateValue = is_null($this->{$dateField}) ? Carbon::now() : $this->{$dateField};

    return $this->inUsersTimezone($dateValue);
}

/**
 * Change timezone of a carbon date.
 */
private function inUsersTimezone($dateValue): Carbon
{
    return $this->asDateTime($dateValue)->timezone(session_timezone());
}

[rocky rampart]

Can't you set it to timezone of Ubuntu or server to match Laravel.... or just choose a default timezone to store it as and then just go off that

[grave iris]

UTC is the default….

[ancient fox]

If you're expecting input from north america, convert dates from whatever timezone the user is in to UTC before storing in the database

[drifting salmon]

I don’t really know what you’re expecting here? As you’ve found, “today” in one location isn’t “today” in another.

You should be storing times, even if it is midnight.

When a user submits a deadline, you should also know what timezone they’re submitted dates and times in, so you can accurate convert it to the UTC equivalent before storing the database.

When querying data, you can then convert it back to whatever timezone.