Convert Date/Time for given Timezone - java

Question

I want to convert this GMT time stamp to GMT+13:

2011-10-06 03:35:05

I have tried about 100 different combinations of DateFormat, TimeZone,

Answer 1

Joda-Time

The java.util.Date/Calendar classes are a mess and should be avoided.

Update: The Joda-Time project is in maintenance mode. The team advises migration to the java.time classes.

Here's your answer using the Joda-Time 2.3 library. Very easy.

As noted in the example code, I suggest you use named time zones wherever possible so that your programming can handle Daylight Saving Time (DST) and other anomalies.

If you had placed a T in the middle of your string instead of a space, you could skip the first two lines of code, dealing with a formatter to parse the string. The DateTime constructor can take a string in ISO 8601 format.

// © 2013 Basil Bourque. This source code may be used freely forever by anyone taking full responsibility for doing so.
// import org.joda.time.*;
// import org.joda.time.format.*;

// Parse string as a date-time in UTC (no time zone offset).
DateTimeFormatter formatter = org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormat.forPattern( "yyyy-MM-dd' 'HH:mm:ss" );
DateTime dateTimeInUTC = formatter.withZoneUTC().parseDateTime( "2011-10-06 03:35:05" );

// Adjust for 13 hour offset from UTC/GMT.
DateTimeZone offsetThirteen = DateTimeZone.forOffsetHours( 13 );
DateTime thirteenDateTime = dateTimeInUTC.toDateTime( offsetThirteen );

// Hard-coded offsets should be avoided. Better to use a desired time zone for handling Daylight Saving Time (DST) and other anomalies.
// Time Zone list… http://joda-time.sourceforge.net/timezones.html
DateTimeZone timeZoneTongatapu = DateTimeZone.forID( "Pacific/Tongatapu" );
DateTime tongatapuDateTime = dateTimeInUTC.toDateTime( timeZoneTongatapu );

Dump those values…

System.out.println( "dateTimeInUTC: " + dateTimeInUTC );
System.out.println( "thirteenDateTime: " + thirteenDateTime );
System.out.println( "tongatapuDateTime: " + tongatapuDateTime );

When run…

dateTimeInUTC: 2011-10-06T03:35:05.000Z
thirteenDateTime: 2011-10-06T16:35:05.000+13:00
tongatapuDateTime: 2011-10-06T16:35:05.000+13:00