PHP strtotime to return as UTC timestamp?

Question

Its a bit of a sever difference problem. On my local dev. server Im using:

<?php print strtotime($date." UCT"); ?>

The above code gives me the correct timestamp for my timezone. HOWEVER, the same code returns false on the live server.

The live server has a lower version of php installed and I imagine that to be the problem.

What I'm looking for is an alternative to the above line of code.

I could use the normal strototime without the." UCT" part and add in 2hours but would rather have PHP handle timezones.

$date looks like this: 2011-05-25 05:48:00

Answer 1

<?php print strtotime($date." UTC"); ?>

instead of

<?php print strtotime($date." UCT"); ?>

Answer 2

PHP warning on PHP documentation page, no support for UCT there:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/timezones.others.php

Warning

Please do not use any of the timezones listed here (besides UTC), they only exist for backward compatible reasons.

And here is latest PECL timezon database:

http://pecl.php.net/get/timezonedb