Getting the time zone abbreviation can be achieved in PHP in two ways. 1. Use date('T') to get the abbreviation of the current default time zone, such as CST, PST, or UTC, but the result depends on the time zone set by the server or set by date_default_timezone_set() and is affected by daylight saving time; 2. Use DateTimeZone to combine with the DateTime object to get the abbreviation dynamically for a specific time zone, such as Europe/London returning BST or GMT. Due to the inuniqueness of time zone abbreviation and being affected by daylight saving time, PHP does not provide a direct mapping table. If a fixed output is required, it is recommended to manually maintain the mapping array, such as mapping Asia/Shanghai to CST.

Getting the time zone abbreviation is actually a simple but error-prone problem in PHP. Because date or DateTime class of PHP does not directly provide functions that "get time zone abbreviation", such as converting Asia/Shanghai to CST.

If you just want to output the abbreviation of the current time zone (such as CST, PST, UTC, etc.), the following methods can be implemented, but pay attention to their limitations.

Use date('T') to get the current time zone abbreviation

This is the most common and easiest way:

 echo date('T'); // Output formats similar to CST, PST, UTC

This method depends on the default time zone setting used by the current script, which means it returns the current time zone abbreviation of the server configuration. If you have set a specific time zone via date_default_timezone_set() , it will reflect that setting.

For example:

 date_default_timezone_set('America/Los_Angeles');
echo date('T'); // Output PST or PDT (depending on daylight saving time)

Note: This method cannot dynamically obtain abbreviation based on a specific time or region name, and the abbreviation of some regions may be ambiguity (for example, CST can represent Chinese standard time, or Cuba or Central American time).

Use the DateTimeZone and DateTime objects to get the abbreviation for the specified time zone

If you want to get the abbreviation for a specific time zone name (such as Europe/London), you can use DateTimeZone and DateTime together:

 $timezone = new DateTimeZone('Europe/London');
$datetime = new DateTime('now', $timezone);
echo $datetime->format('T'); // Output BST or GMT (depending on the season)

This method is more flexible because you can switch between different time points and different regions to get the corresponding abbreviation.

Some common combinations you can use like this:

• Asia/Tokyo → JST
• America/New_York → EST or EDT
• UTC → UTC

But be aware: the same time zone may have different abbreviations in different time periods (such as whether daylight saving time is enabled), so the results you see may not be fixed.

Why can't we map directly from time zone names to fixed abbreviations?

PHP does not provide a built-in mapping table that directly corresponds to CST like Asia/Shanghai, or America/Chicago to CST. There are several reasons:

• Some abbreviations are not unique worldwide (CST also represents Central Standard Time, China Standard Time, Cuba Standard Time, etc.)
• Daylight saving time causes abbreviation changes (EST → EDT)
• Different countries have different names for the same time zone

Therefore, if you need a fixed abbreviation, it is recommended to maintain a mapping array yourself, for example:

 $timezone_abbreviations = [
    'Asia/Shanghai' => 'CST',
    'America/New_York' => 'EST',
    'UTC' => 'UTC',
];
echo $timezone_abbreviations['Asia/Shanghai']; // Output CST

Although this method is manually maintained, it is more controllable in some business scenarios.

summary

• The easiest way is date('T')
• If you want to target a specific time zone, use DateTime DateTimeZone
• The time zone abbreviation is neither unique nor fixed, and cannot be completely relied on automatic acquisition.
• If you need stable output, it is best to create a mapping table yourself

Basically all is it, not complicated but it is easy to ignore details.

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