Java Joda time Daylight savings time

Question

I am having difficulty using JodaTime to handle Daylight savings time.

 String time = "3:45-PM";   
 DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("KK:mm-a");
 DateTime dt = formatter.parseDateTime(time).withZone(DateTimeZone.forID("America/New_York"));
 dt = dt.toDateTime(DateTimeZone.UTC);

 startDate = startDate.withHourOfDay(dt.getHourOfDay()).withMinuteOfHour(dt.getMinuteOfHour());

Output from this code snippet ends up being:

2015-04-08 16:46:51.952  INFO 12244 --- [nio-8080-exec-1] VALUES PULLED                        : 03:45-PM
2015-04-08 16:46:51.952  INFO 12244 --- [nio-8080-exec-1] VALUES PULLED                        : 08:45-PM

Currently, the time is 5 hours off. Which is not handling Daylights saving time. How do I get Joda Time to take DLS into account?

Answer 1

This happens because the DateTime object that you get after parsing is set to the date 01-01-1970. It looks like you expect that it would be set to today, but it isn't.

If you want the time to be interpreted as 3:45 PM today in the timezone America/New_York, do this:

String time = "3:45-PM";

DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("KK:mm-a")
        .withZone(DateTimeZone.forID("America/New_York"));

DateTime dt = formatter.parseDateTime(time)
        .withDate(LocalDate.now());

System.out.println(dt);

System.out.println(dt.withZone(DateTimeZone.UTC));

Note: You need to set the zone on the DateTimeFormatter.