Given my UsersTableSeeder.php class, I am seeding my database with fake data, using a loop:
$numberOfUsers = 150;
DB::table('users')->delete();
$faker = Faker::create();
for ($i = 1; $i <= $numberOfUsers; $i++) {
DB::table('users')->insert([
'id' => $i,
'firstName' => $faker->firstName,
'lastName' => $faker->lastName,
'email' => $faker->email,
'password' => bcrypt("123"),
'created_at' => Carbon::now()->addDays((-5 * $i) - 2)->format('Y-m-d H:i:s'),
'updated_at' => Carbon::now()->addDays(-5 * $i)->format('Y-m-d H:i:s'),
]);
}
The problem here is that when my datetime values are generated, there is a chance it might fall in a DST zone, like between 2017-03-12 02:00:00 and 2017-03-12 02:59:59 (which does happen) and it gives me the following error:
[PDOException]
SQLSTATE[22007]: Invalid datetime format: 1292 Incorrect datetime value: '2016-03-13 02:08:11' for column 'created_at' at row 1
Now I understand that I cannot put such a value in my database, because my database is smart enough to know that this zone in time doesn't exactly exit. But is there any way I can 'make' Carbon smart enough to consider DST ? I do not want to manually check it with something like:
if ($my_date > 2017-03-12 02:00:00 && $my_date < 2017-03-12 02:59:59)
In Fact Carbon can handle DST zones.
$date = '2017-03-26 02:01:01';
$date = \Carbon\Carbon::parse($date, 'Europe/Berlin');
dd((string)$date);
Results in
// an extra hour was added automatically
"2017-03-26 03:01:01"
Per default Laravel uses 'UTC' for all date and datetime operations (including Carbon). This value can be set in app/config.php
If you actually want to your datetimes be considered in 'UTC' in database a dirty workaround could be something like that:
EDIT:
// calculate current offset to UTC:
$offset = \Carbon\Carbon::now('America/Montreal')->offsetHours;
'created_at' => Carbon::now('America/Montreal')->addHours(-4 + $i)->addDays((-1 * $i) - 2)->tz('UTC')->addHours($offset)->format('Y-m-d H:i:s')
You can generate your timestamps with Carbon and provide the timezone. Try just:
Carbon::now()->format('c')