How can I get the current date and time in UTC or GMT in Java?

Question

When I create a new Date object, it is initialized to current time but in the local timezone. How can I get a simply the cuurent date and time in the GMT timezone?

Answer 1

java.util.Date is always in UTC. What makes you think it's in local time? I suspect the problem is that you're displaying it via an instance of Calendar which uses the local timezone, or possibly using Date.toString() which also uses the local timezone.

If this isn't the problem, please post some sample code.

I would, however, recommend that you use Joda Time anyway, which offers a much clearer API.

Answer 2

With:

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();

Then cal have the current date and time.
You also could get the current Date and Time for timezone with:

Calendar cal2 = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-2"));

You could ask cal.get(Calendar.DATE); or other Calendar constant about others details.
Date and Timestamp are deprecated in Java. Calendar class it isn't.

Answer 3

You can use:

Calendar aGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));

Then all operations performed using the aGMTCalendar object will be done with the GMT time zone and will not have the daylight savings time or fixed offsets applied. I think the previous poster is correct that the Date() object always returns a GMT it's not until you go to do something with the date object that it gets converted to the local time zone.

Answer 4

    Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
    System.out.println("current: "+c.getTime());

    TimeZone z = c.getTimeZone();
    int offset = z.getRawOffset();
    int offsetHrs = offset / 1000 / 60 / 60;
    int offsetMins = offset / 1000 / 60 % 60;

    System.out.println("offset: " + offsetHrs);
    System.out.println("offset: " + offsetMins);

    c.add(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, (-offsetHrs));
    c.add(Calendar.MINUTE, (-offsetMins));

    System.out.println("GMT Time: "+c.getTime());

Answer 5

SimpleDateFormat dateFormatGmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss");
dateFormatGmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));

//Local time zone   
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatLocal = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss");

//Time in GMT
return dateFormatLocal.parse( dateFormatGmt.format(new Date()) );

Answer 6

Calendar aGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT")); Then all operations performed using the aGMTCalendar object will be done with the GMT time zone and will not have the daylight savings time or fixed offsets applied

Wrong!

Calendar aGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT")); aGMTCalendar.getTime(); //or getTimeInMillis()

and Calendar aNotGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-2"));aNotGMTCalendar.getTime();

will return the same time. Idem for new Date(); //it's not GMT.

Answer 7

Isn't the internal time value (ms since .....) always in UTC, and only "displayable" fields converted to the selected time zone ?