How to get current date and time in PHP? Step-by-step guide with examples

Hello everyone! I just started learning PHP and encountered a task: I need to display the current date and time on a page. I've searched through many forums, but everywhere they write some complex things about timezones and formats. I tried simply writing:

echo date();

But it gives an error. Then I read that you need to pass a parameter, so I tried this:

echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s');

This seems to work, but I'm not sure if it's correct. Can you tell me how to properly get the date and time in PHP? How do I set the timezone to Moscow time? And is it possible to get the date in a user-friendly format, for example "March 15, 2024, 14:30"? I would be grateful for a detailed explanation for beginners.

Another question: if I want to save the