How to tackle daylight savings using TimeZone in J

Question

I have to print the EST time in my Java application. I had set the time zone to EST using:

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("EST"));

But when the daylight savings is being followed in this timezone, my code does not print the correct time (it prints 1 hour less).

How to make the code work to read the correct time always, irrespective of whether the daylight savings are being observed or not?

PS: I tried setting the timezone to EDT, but it doesn't solve the problem.

Answer 1

Instead of entering "EST" for the timezone you can enter "EST5EDT" as such. As you noted, just "EDT" does not work. This will account for the daylight savings time issue. The code line looks like this:

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("EST5EDT"));

Answer 2

Implementing the TimeZone class to set the timezone to the Calendar takes care of the daylight savings.

java.util.TimeZone represents a time zone offset, and also figures out daylight savings.

sample code:

TimeZone est_timeZone = TimeZoneIDProvider.getTimeZoneID(TimeZoneID.US_EASTERN).getTimeZone();
Calendar enteredCalendar = Calendar.getInstance();
enteredCalendar.setTimeZone(est_timeZone);

Answer 3

In java, DateFormatter by default uses DST,To avoid day Light saving (DST) you need to manually do a trick,
first you have to get the DST offset i.e. for how many millisecond DST applied, for ex somewhere DST is also for 45 minutes and for some places it is for 30 min
but in most cases DST is of 1 hour
you have to use Timezone object and check with the date whether it is falling under DST or not and then you have to manually add offset of DST into it. for eg:

 TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone("EST");
 boolean isDST = tz.inDaylightTime(yourDateObj);
 if(isDST){
 int sec= tz.getDSTSavings()/1000;// for no. of seconds
 Calendar cal= Calendar.getInstance();
 cal.setTime(yourDateObj);
 cal.add(Calendar.Seconds,sec);
 System.out.println(cal.getTime());// your Date with DST neglected
  }

Answer 4

As per this answer:

TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone("EST");
boolean inDs = tz.inDaylightTime(new Date());

Answer 5

public static float calculateTimeZone(String deviceTimeZone) {
    float ONE_HOUR_MILLIS = 60 * 60 * 1000;

    // Current timezone and date
    TimeZone timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone(deviceTimeZone);
    Date nowDate = new Date();
    float offsetFromUtc = timeZone.getOffset(nowDate.getTime()) / ONE_HOUR_MILLIS;

    // Daylight Saving time
    if (timeZone.useDaylightTime()) {
        // DST is used
        // I'm saving this is preferences for later use

        // save the offset value to use it later
        float dstOffset = timeZone.getDSTSavings() / ONE_HOUR_MILLIS;
        // DstOffsetValue = dstOffset
        // I'm saving this is preferences for later use
        // save that now we are in DST mode
        if (timeZone.inDaylightTime(nowDate)) {
            Log.e(Utility.class.getName(), "in Daylight Time");
            return -(ONE_HOUR_MILLIS * dstOffset);
        } else {
            Log.e(Utility.class.getName(), "not in Daylight Time");
            return 0;
        }
    } else
        return 0;
}

Answer 6

private static Long DateTimeNowTicks(){
    long TICKS_AT_EPOCH = 621355968000000000L;
    TimeZone timeZone = Calendar.getInstance().getTimeZone();
    int offs = timeZone.getRawOffset();
    if (timeZone.inDaylightTime(new Date()))
        offs += 60 * 60 * 1000;
    return (System.currentTimeMillis() + offs) * 10000 + TICKS_AT_EPOCH;
}