What is the correct way to handle timezones in datetimes input from a string in Qt

Question

I'm using Qt to parse an XML file which contains timestamps in UTC. Within the program, of course, I'd like them to change to local time. In the XML file, the timestamps look like this: "2009-07-30T00:32:00Z".

Unfortunately, when using the QDateTime::fromString() method, these timestamps are interpreted as being in the local timezone. The hacky way to solve this is to add or subtract the correct timezone offset from this time to convert it to "true" local time. However, is there any way to make Qt realize that I am importing a UTC timestamp and then automatically convert it to local time?

Answer 1

try using the setTime_t function.

Answer 2

Do it like this:

QDateTime timestamp = QDateTime::fromString(thestring);
timestamp.setTimeSpec(Qt::UTC); // mark the timestamp as UTC (but don't convert it)
timestamp = timestamp.toLocalTime() // convert to local time