How to set time zone of a java.util.Date?

Question

I have parsed a java.util.Date from a String but it is setting the local time zone as the time zone of the date object.

The time zone is not specified in the String from which Date is parsed. I want to set a specific time zone of the date object.

How can I do that?

Answer 1

You could also set the timezone at the JVM level

Date date1 = new Date();
System.out.println(date1);

TimeZone.setDefault(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
// or pass in a command line arg: -Duser.timezone="UTC"

Date date2 = new Date();
System.out.println(date2);

output:

Thu Sep 05 10:11:12 EDT 2013
Thu Sep 05 14:11:12 UTC 2013

Answer 2

Convert the Date to String and do it with SimpleDateFormat.

    SimpleDateFormat readFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss");
    readFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT" + timezoneOffset));
    String dateStr = readFormat.format(date);
    SimpleDateFormat writeFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss");
    Date date = writeFormat.parse(dateStr);