Converting date with offset

[ts10]

Hey all - Happy Friday to those where it's currently Friday! =)

I was coming to the board baffled about a timezone issue that I can't see to resolve online. I see that blackhorse just submitted a similar issue but I can't tell that it's what I'm looking for, so I am posting my problem here.

I have an input box where someone selects their current timezone from a drop down and then writes in the time.

I then put the two together to form a string:

$submitted_time = $_GET["q0_Whattimeie323pm"] . " " . $_GET["q13_Whattimezoneareyouin"];

That $submitted_time should now say something like "16:42 CST"

I use strtotime() to convert it to a timestamp.

Now that I have the timestamp, I need to convert it back to a full date where I can pick what timezone to return it in.

$converted_time = strtotime($submitted_time);
$convert_to_readable = date("m/d/y g:i A", $converted_time);

I cannot figure out how to do this. I see "O" as an option in date() but don't see any examples of how to use it of offset time.

Right now it's giving me back "10/16/09 4:42 PM" but I want to choose the timezone I get it in.

Does anyone know how to do this with date() or another method?

Thanks!

[Shrike]

The function [MAN]strtotime[/MAN] understands the timezone identifier at the end of a date string, and will convert the time to the local timezone. If you are using PHP 5 you can (and should) call [MAN]date_default_timezone_set[/MAN] prior to using strtotime. Otherwise you need to set the TZ environment variable. Note that [MAN]date[/MAN] does not perform this sort of conversion.