'CDateTimeParser' or 'CTimestamp'

Yii 1.1 General Discussion
1

I have a requirement in my application, in user registration user should select timezone. I have another column in database for user table called ‘date_of_registration’.

I need help on the ‘date_of_registration’ column type to create it as date or int.

If the column type is date then i should store date value. If the column type is int then i should store timestamp value.

I should show ‘date_of_registration’ in the front end by using the timezone .

EX. if y user has to view ‘date_of_registration’ of x user, ‘date_of_registration’ value should convert to y’s timezone and then show the final date.

Now if my column is of datatype int which Yii function should i use whether ‘CDateTimeParser’ or ‘CTimestamp’,

and if my column is of datatype date which Yii function should i use whether ‘CDateTimeParser’ or ‘CTimestamp’,

What is the best way to do, and which class is more flexible for using.

Thanks in advance,

Pavan

2

You should store unix timestamps in your db, not strings.

You get the current timestamp in php function time() => use it when performing a registration.

For formatting dates and times from timestamps, use the class CDateFormatter.


<?php echo Yii::app()->dateFormatter->formatDateTime(time(), 'long', 'short'); ?>

The timezone which is used is Yii::app()->timeZone. You can change its default value in the main config file but ultimately each time a page is requested it should be set to the current user time zone in function init() of WebUser (extends CWebUser).