Handling date and time information in PHP can sometimes get a little tricky. Toss MySQL into the mix and any beginning programmer out there might get a bit lost. Well, that's why there's tutorials, and if this is your situation, PHPit.net has posted just what you need.

Whenever you create a PHP script, there's a big chance it'll involve handling dates and times, when for example you need to create a content management system or an event tracker. Handling dates and times in your scripts doesn't sound so hard, after all, it's just a few numbers to track, but in reality this is actually much harder than you think. In fact, using dates and times can be one of the most challenging tasks to do, especially if you want to do it properly.

That's why in this article I'm going to take you through the necessary steps to properly handle dates and times. First we'll have a look at the problem, and after that we'll go through the steps necessary to solve it.

They walk you through a sample of using a GMT timestamp, how to store the timestamps in the MySQL database, and a wrap-up that includes a class with the date/time handling code they've built up in the course of the article.