Java Calendar: getting time for the timezone

Question

The following works (shows UTC time)

TimeZone.setDefault(TimeZone.getTimeZone(\"UTC\"));
System.out.println(new Date());

but this doesn\'t

Answer 1

You're printing out the result of Date.toString(), which always uses the default time zone.

I suggest you use DateFormat instead, which is better suited for formatting dates. Date.toString is really only suitable for debugging - it provides no control over the format.

Alternatively, use Joda Time for all your date and time operations - it's a much better API to start with :)

Answer 2

To get date, formatted for other timezone, use SimpleDateFormat and set timezone in it (by default, it uses local timezone).

Try this way:

SimpleDateFormat f = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:SS Z");
f.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
System.out.println(f.format(cal.getTime()));
System.out.println(new Date());