[php-maint] Bug#571762: Bug#571762: [php5] please get rid of "Warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings."

[Raphael Geissert]

On 27 February 2010 14:53, Filipus Klutiero <chealer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> With PHP 5.3, it is now strongly recommended to set the timezone; failure to
> do so makes date('U'), for example, trigger an E_WARNING (while time() is
> fine): http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.date-default-timezone-set.php
>
> This is really annoying.

If you want to change that, file a bug report upstream.

> For example:
[...]
>
> I have *no idea* where 'EST/-5.0/no DST' comes from, although the system
> *is* in GMT-5. IMO, there's even a bug here. The default PHP configuration
> doesn't set date.timezone. This is, IMO, the right thing to do. Searching
> for elements of this message on Google gives an idea of how much this change
> broke.

Why do you think that hard-coding (even if modified at install-time)
the time-zone is better than letting php figure it out at runtime?
"EST/-5.0/no DST" comes from a call to the localtime_r(3) function,
refer to its manpage for more information.

>
> Telling me that my Debian system's timezone settings are unreliable is not
> something I expect from software coming from timezones less than 10 years
> behind mine. A *change* in this direction is quite frustrating.
[...]
>
> Since date_default_timezone_set() was not used, TZ is not set and
> date.timezone was not set, date_default_timezone_get() must be "Querying the
> host operating system (if supported and allowed by the OS)".

And that's exactly what it does.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphael Geissert - Debian Developer
www.debian.org - get.debian.net