How to Retrieve the Timezone Based on User Location in Laravel 7.x

Learn how to get the user's timezone when accessing your Laravel 7.x application. This guide provides clear steps using the GeoPlugin API to enhance your application's logging setup.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/66175726/ asked by the user 'Mr.Singh' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/1136807/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/66186752/ provided by the user 'Mr.Singh' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/1136807/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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Understanding Timezone Retrieval in Laravel 7.x

When developing web applications, logging user activities is vital for monitoring and analytics. A common requirement is to capture the timezone from which users access your application. It’s essential as it allows you to plan and analyze user behavior accurately, especially for global applications. However, you may find that functions like date_default_timezone_get() only return UTC time. This article explores how to get the user's timezone dynamically, allowing you to log timestamps in the format of their specific timezone, such as Asia/Kolkata.

The Challenge

In Laravel 7.x, using the straightforward method to get the timezone merely outputs UTC. This limitation can be a hurdle if you’re looking to log events in a timezone-aware format. To address this issue, we will utilize an external API service—GeoPlugin—to fetch the timezone based on the user's IP address.

Our Solution: GeoPlugin and TimeZoneService

To achieve this, you'll create a custom service in Laravel, TimeZoneService, that interacts with the GeoPlugin API. Below, we’ll break down the implementation step by step:

Step 1: Set Up the TimeZoneService

Create the TimeZoneService Class: This class will handle fetching the timezone data using the user's IP address.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Key Points:

Uses cURL to make an API request to GeoPlugin.

Handles errors if the data cannot be fetched.

Step 2: Using TimeZoneService in a Controller

Create a Controller Method: You’ll want to use the TimeZoneService within a controller to get the user's timezone data.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Key Points:

Fetches the user's IP address using Laravel's helper function.

Calls the TimeZoneService to get timezone information and accesses it reliably.

Conclusion

By implementing the TimeZoneService, you can now dynamically retrieve the user's timezone based on their IP address. This not only enriches your access logs but also enables you to tailor user experiences across various geographies effectively.

Final Thoughts

Feel free to enhance the above code as per your needs. If you find any optimizations or updates, sharing them with the community would be much appreciated. Thank you for reading, and happy coding!