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

This is the problem to start with:

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

The 3-letter abbreviations should be wholeheartedly avoided in favour of TZDB zone IDs. EST is Eastern Standard Time - and Standard time never observes DST; it's not really a full time zone name. It's the name used for part of a time zone. (Unfortunately I haven't come across a good term for this "half time zone" concept.)

You want a full time zone name. For example, America/New_York is in the Eastern time zone:

TimeZone zone = TimeZone.getTimeZone("America/New_York");
DateFormat format = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance();
format.setTimeZone(zone);

System.out.println(format.format(new Date()));

Answer 2

Other answers are correct, especially the one by Jon Skeet, but outdated.

java.time

These old date-time classes have been supplanted by the java.time framework built into Java 8 and later.

If you simply want the current time in UTC, use the Instant class.

Instant now = Instant.now();

EST is not a time zone, as explained in the correct Answer by Jon Skeet. Such 3-4 letter codes are neither standardized nor unique, and further the confusion over Daylight Saving Time (DST). Use a proper time zone name in the "continent/region" format.

Perhaps you meant Eastern Standard Time in east coast of north America? Or Egypt Standard Time? Or European Standard Time?

ZoneId zoneId = ZoneId.of( "America/New_York" );
ZoneId zoneId = ZoneId.of( "Africa/Cairo" );
ZoneId zoneId = ZoneId.of( "Europe/Lisbon" );

Use any such ZoneId object to get the current moment adjusted to a particular time zone to produce a ZonedDateTime object.

ZonedDateTime zdt = ZonedDateTime.now( zoneId ) ;

Adjust that ZonedDateTime into a different time zone by producing another ZonedDateTime object from the first. The java.time framework uses immutable objects rather than changing (mutating) existing objects.

ZonedDateTime zdtGuam = zdt.withZoneSameInstant( ZoneId.of( "Pacific/Guam" ) ) ;