Using PHP 5.3 and given the string Sat, 20 Oct 2012 05:00:00 GMT:
print $start;
$start = strtotime($start);
var_dump($start);
$hour = date('H:i A', $start);
die($hour);
That snippet of code in my program returns this:
Sat, 20 Oct 2012 05:00:00 GMT
int(1350709200)
00:00 AM
The var_dump is correct, but the date returns a bad answer.
Note, also, that changing that snippet to read:
print $start;
$start = strtotime($start);
die($start);
$hour = date('H:i A', $start);
die($hour);
returns:
Sat, 20 Oct 2012 05:00:00 GMT
The first die returns an empty string, a null, which I can only assume is actually a boolean FALSE.
So I'm actually having two different problems, here. The same answer returns two different things depending on if I var_dump or die, and the second is that date appears to be receiving the FALSE answer, not the var_dump answer.
Help?
AS you have said, you are setting the timezone to America/Chicago. When you call strtotime you are explicitly specifying GMT in the string. When you then put the timestamp into Date, it is taking the timestamp and giving you the time in America/Chicago, 5 hours before GMT, which is why it is 00:00AM.
You are using 5.3. I would suggest using the DateTime object instead of strtotime() and date(). Its a bit easier to work with timezones etc, and the var_dumps are useful. Create a DateTime from user input or db value and then pass that around in your code instead of timestamps.