Query events post type after current date and timezone

Question

So I am making changes to a clients website and currently they have an events post type with some custom fields that allow them to set an events end date/time and the events timezone.

The custom fields setup:

• Start Date and Time: text input / saves as php format U
• End Date and Time: text input / saves as php format U
• Timezone: select field / saves as string (e.g. GMT / BST)

And then on the front end their current wp_query is:

$events_query = new WP_Query([
    'post_type'     => 'events',
    'meta_key'      => 'start_date_and_time',
    'orderby'       => 'meta_value_num',
    'order'         => 'ASC',
    'meta_query'    => [
        [
            'key'       => 'end_date_and_time',
            'value'     => date('U'),
            'compare'   => '>=',
            'type'      => 'NUMERIC'
        ]
    ]
]);

But this is not taking into account the timezone set in the backend compared to the timezone of the user.

Any help would be great.

Thanks.

Answer 1

date() PHP functions returns the value of time() PHP functions in the specified format. time() use server local time. If you want to get date/time based of WordPress configuration, you could use current_time(), a WordPress function, instead of native PHP functions.

// 'timestamp' = Unix Timestamp or 'U' PHP time format
$current_time = current_time( 'timestamp' );