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javadatetimegmtmilliseconds

GMT in java, simple but not working

This is both a duplicate and not a duplicate!

Just please help me and don't refer me to anywhere else, cause I'm really unable to get the GMT time. The answer seems easy but it doesn't work for me. I don't know are the answers all aver the web wrong, or am I making a mistake?

Please take a look at this snippet and the results:

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
long time = cal.getTimeInMillis();
Date date = new Date(time);
System.out.println(date);

time = System.currentTimeMillis();
date = new Date(time);
System.out.println("--\n" + date);

result :

Fri Feb 28 16:07:12 GMT+03:30 2014
--
Fri Feb 28 16:07:12 GMT+03:30 2014

Both show my local time. I even printed directly the time, cause I thought maybe this is due to Date class but even those are the same (with just about 1 or 2 milliseconds difference).

Solution

  • Use setTimeZone() on a SimpleDateFormat to print the date in a specific timezone.

    DateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MMM-yyyy HH:mm:ss z");

Date d = format.parse("28-Feb-2014 13:00:00 PST");
System.out.println(format.format(d));

format.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
System.out.println(format.format(d));

    Prints:

    28-Feb-2014 13:00:00 PST
28-Feb-2014 21:00:00 GMT