AccessAlly TimeStamp Details

Every timestamp AccessAlly writes to a log comes from one clock, is stored in UTC, and is only converted to local time when it is displayed. Here is the full map.

01The one clock

Every timestamp in AccessAlly — regardless of which log writes it — originates in a single function. It reads PHP’s time() and caches it once per request, so all entries written during one request share an identical moment.

// resource/accessally-utilities.php:1508
public static function get_current_time() {
    if (false === self::$cached_current_time) {
        self::$cached_current_time = time();   // UTC Unix epoch
    }
    return self::$cached_current_time;
}

02Two storage wrappers

From that clock, an entry is stored one of two ways. Six tables format it into a UTC datetime string via get_sql_time(), which wraps the clock in gmdate('Y-m-d H:i:s'). The other two write the raw Unix integer straight to the column. Same moment, two representations on disk — and the database schema proves it: the string tables use a datetime column, the integer tables use bigint(20).

03Every log table & its setter

The complete map. Note that field-operation-log.php has no setter of its own — it is read-only reporting over the same aal_custom_ops_log table, so it shares that timestamp source rather than adding a new one.

04From stored UTC to the time you see

Storage is always UTC. Conversion to a human-readable local time happens only at render, in three steps.

// 1 — database-utilities.php:94
convert_sql_time_to_display()
    // 2 — database-utilities.php:87
    → convert_sql_time_to_unix()   // strtotime($sql_time . ' UTC')
        // 3 — membership-utilities.php:1175
        → convert_unix_time_to_readable_date()
              $date->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone($extra_settings['timezone']));
              $date->format($display_format);

The display timezone comes from AccessAlly’s own timezone setting ($extra_settings['timezone']), not WordPress core’s Settings → General timezone. When those two disagree, logged times look “off” even though the stored data is correct.

05The exceptions

Two places skip the conversion step and print the stored UTC value directly — worth knowing before someone reports a “wrong” time.