Question about Time Zone Offset mod

[JohnBoyCR]

Will the Time Zone Offset mod compensate for the start/stop
times for sales? The reason for the question is that the
server is about 8 hours different from most of our customers
(eg GMT +8). As such, it is difficult to get the start/stop dates
of sales to be 'synched' with our customers. It would be cool
to have all sales start/stop relative to GMT. Thanks for the
help !

[JohnBoyCR]

Okay, I am responding to my own question.

It looks like the start/stop times, as seen by the system, are
determined by a function call; now() . I think that this is a SQL
function, but I am not sure.

So, the question now becomes, does the Time Zone Offset mod
actually change the time as retrieved by the now() function call ?

If not, the only way I can see to change the Sale Maker start/stop
times to coincide with a different time zone would be to modify all
the pertinent code and replace now() with dateadd("h", -8, now()).
Really don't want to do that.

Anybody have some suggestions or help with this ?

[JohnBoyCR]

Actually, I would install the Time Zone Offset mod and then change
all of the occurrences of now() with
dateadd("h", .TIME_ZONE_OFFSET. , now() )_

Big job! Can anybody clue me in as to whether I am on the right
track and if MAYBE somebody has already done this.

[JohnBoyCR]

There might be a much easier way to do all this.

Why can't I just invoke the php command

ini_set('date.timezone', 'Europe/London');

in the PHP.ini file?

Any session of my site would then appear to be in that
time zone, would it not ?


Appreciate responses.

[JohnBoyCR]

Well, setting the time zone using the ini_set or through the htaccess
file does not affect the time that is retrieved with the now()
function! So, it looks like code modification is the only way to
get what I want. YIKES !

[gilby]

Well, setting the time zone using the ini_set or through the htaccess
file does not affect the time that is retrieved with the now()
function! So, it looks like code modification is the only way to
get what I want. YIKES !

You are missing what this mod does
There are 2 times to keep track of

There is the php time which you can set with a "TZ" variable as per the instructions in the mod. You can (should) set this both in the admin and catalog side of the website.

There is the mysql time (which cannot normally be altered unless you control the server).
The Time Zone Offset mod "adjusts" the times and dates stored in the database to be the same as the now adjusted php time.

eg:
My website is for Australia
I live in Victoria GMT+10
Daylight saving now so GMT+11
My Server is in the US GMT-5
I am 16 hours ahead of my servers time

I use a tz variable to set the php time

<?php 
putenv ('TZ=Australia/Melbourne'); 
?>

My Time Zone Offset is set to 16 to adjust the dates and times recorded in the database to reflect my local timezone and not the servers.

It is not designed to "fix" start and stop times in the website.
I haven't looked at this but I assume that just setting the TZ variable to the zone you require should do what you want to do.

This assumes that you want the start/stop times to apply to the one time zone only.

[JohnBoyCR]

Update in response to gilby .

I think I understand what the Time Zone Offset mod does.
My concern is NOT what is stored in the database but how the
site responds to the server time.

I adjusted the site timezone using setenv, in the htaccess file,
and the site now 'appears' to be in the time zone I want.
However, that is not what I want to accomplish.

When I set up a sale, I would like the sale end date to occur
relative to the time zone that I have established for the site,
say Europe/London. The problem is that the server is actually
located +8 hours from London. So what happens is that the
sale will end 8 hours earlier than I want.

It appears to me that the stop time for the sale is computed
in the php code by retrieving the current date using the now() function. If I were to change the manner in which the
code computed the stop time, say by replacing now() with
dateadd("h", -8, now() ), would it not continue the sale for
8 hours past the server time for end of sale?

In the final analysis, it probably isn't worth the effort. I just
think it would make my life a little easier if I didn't have to be
up all hours the night making sure that the customers aren't
getting cheated by having a sale end sooner than advertised.

[JohnBoyCR]

message to gilby and others :

Update to how I perceive the problem and its resolution.

The problem, as I see it, is that sales end relative to the
server clock and not relative to whatever time zone I may have
set using the TZ environment parameter.

If I want to offset the sale end time in order to have the stop time
coincide with the time zone I have established using TZ, can
I not simply change the includes/functions/salemaker.php
code to use dateadd("h", TIME_ZONE_OFFSET, now() ) instead
of now() ? I would define TIME_ZONE_OFFSET in my
English.php file.

It is quite possible that my ignorance is showing here, but it
would seem to me that this would be a possible solution to my
specific problem.

Thanks for the feedback.

[gilby]

message to gilby and others :

Update to how I perceive the problem and its resolution.

The problem, as I see it, is that sales end relative to the
server clock and not relative to whatever time zone I may have
set using the TZ environment parameter.

If I want to offset the sale end time in order to have the stop time
coincide with the time zone I have established using TZ, can
I not simply change the includes/functions/salemaker.php
code to use dateadd("h", TIME_ZONE_OFFSET, now() ) instead
of now() ? I would define TIME_ZONE_OFFSET in my
English.php file.

It is quite possible that my ignorance is showing here, but it
would seem to me that this would be a possible solution to my
specific problem.

Thanks for the feedback.

now() is a mysql function and the TZ variable does not affect this
In the code replace both occurances of

now() 

with

date_add(now(), INTERVAL '" . TIME_ZONE_OFFSET . "' HOUR) 

If you are not using the Time Zone Offset mod then you can set the define in english.php as suggested.

[JohnBoyCR]

Thanks to gilby for the reply.

It looks like in includes/functions/salemaker.php code there are
several references to now(), as related to sale_date_end. I
would need to change all of those references as suggested. RIGHT?

Plus, would I need to also apply those same changes in the
product pricing code? And is that code

includes/functions/functions_prices.php ?

Or will just changing the salemaker.php code take care of the
product pricing displayed with the sale value? I'm still an egg !

Thanks for your help.