Working with DateTime Instances

DateTime changes are detected by Reference

When calling EntityManager#flush() Doctrine computes the changesets of all the currently managed entities and saves the differences to the database. In case of object properties (@Column(type="datetime") or @Column(type="object")) these comparisons are always made BY REFERENCE. That means the following change will NOT be saved into the database:

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<?php
/** @Entity */
class Article
{
    /** @Column(type="datetime") */
    private $updated;

    public function setUpdated()
    {
        // will NOT be saved in the database
        $this->updated->modify("now");
    }
}
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The way to go would be:

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<?php
class Article
{
    public function setUpdated()
    {
        // WILL be saved in the database
        $this->updated = new \DateTime("now");
    }
}
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Default Timezone Gotcha

By default Doctrine assumes that you are working with a default timezone. Each DateTime instance that is created by Doctrine will be assigned the timezone that is currently the default, either through the date.timezone ini setting or by calling date_default_timezone_set().

This is very important to handle correctly if your application runs on different servers or is moved from one to another server (with different timezone settings). You have to make sure that the timezone is the correct one on all this systems.

Handling different Timezones with the DateTime Type

If you first come across the requirement to save different timezones you may be still optimistic about how to manage this mess, however let me crush your expectations fast. There is not a single database out there (supported by Doctrine ORM) that supports timezones correctly. Correctly here means that you can cover all the use-cases that can come up with timezones. If you don't believe me you should read up on Storing DateTime in Databases.

The problem is simple. Not a single database vendor saves the timezone, only the differences to UTC. However with frequent daylight saving and political timezone changes you can have a UTC offset that moves in different offset directions depending on the real location.

The solution for this dilemma is simple. Don't use timezones with DateTime and Doctrine ORM. However there is a workaround that even allows correct date-time handling with timezones:

1. Always convert any DateTime instance to UTC.
2. Only set Timezones for displaying purposes
3. Save the Timezone in the Entity for persistence.

Say we have an application for an international postal company and employees insert events regarding postal-package around the world, in their current timezones. To determine the exact time an event occurred means to save both the UTC time at the time of the booking and the timezone the event happened in.

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<?php

namespace DoctrineExtensions\DBAL\Types;

use Doctrine\DBAL\Platforms\AbstractPlatform;
use Doctrine\DBAL\Types\ConversionException;
use Doctrine\DBAL\Types\DateTimeType;

class UTCDateTimeType extends DateTimeType
{
    /**
     * @var \DateTimeZone
     */
    private static $utc;

    public function convertToDatabaseValue($value, AbstractPlatform $platform)
    {
        if ($value instanceof \DateTime) {
            $value->setTimezone(self::getUtc());
        }

        return parent::convertToDatabaseValue($value, $platform);
    }

    public function convertToPHPValue($value, AbstractPlatform $platform)
    {
        if (null === $value || $value instanceof \DateTime) {
            return $value;
        }

        $converted = \DateTime::createFromFormat(
            $platform->getDateTimeFormatString(),
            $value,
            self::getUtc()
        );

        if (! $converted) {
            throw ConversionException::conversionFailedFormat(
                $value,
                $this->getName(),
                $platform->getDateTimeFormatString()
            );
        }

        return $converted;
    }
    
    private static function getUtc(): \DateTimeZone
    {
        return self::$utc ?: self::$utc = new \DateTimeZone('UTC');
    }
}
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This database type makes sure that every DateTime instance is always saved in UTC, relative to the current timezone that the passed DateTime instance has.

To actually use this new type instead of the default datetime type, you need to run following code before bootstrapping the ORM:

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<?php

use Doctrine\DBAL\Types\Type;
use DoctrineExtensions\DBAL\Types\UTCDateTimeType;

Type::overrideType('datetime', UTCDateTimeType::class);
Type::overrideType('datetimetz', UTCDateTimeType::class);
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To be able to transform these values back into their real timezone you have to save the timezone in a separate field of the entity requiring timezoned datetimes:

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<?php
namespace Shipping;

/**
 * @Entity
 */
class Event
{
    /** @Column(type="datetime") */
    private $created;

    /** @Column(type="string") */
    private $timezone;

    /**
     * @var bool
     */
    private $localized = false;

    public function __construct(\DateTime $createDate)
    {
        $this->localized = true;
        $this->created = $createDate;
        $this->timezone = $createDate->getTimeZone()->getName();
    }

    public function getCreated()
    {
        if (!$this->localized) {
            $this->created->setTimeZone(new \DateTimeZone($this->timezone));
        }
        return $this->created;
    }
}
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This snippet makes use of the previously discussed "changeset by reference only" property of objects. That means a new DateTime will only be used during updating if the reference changes between retrieval and flush operation. This means we can easily go and modify the instance by setting the previous local timezone.