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How to format LocalDate to ISO 8601 with T and Z?

I'm trying to generate a random date and time, and convert it to the "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'" format.
Here is what I have tried:
public static String generateRandomDateAndTimeInString() {
LocalDate date = LocalDate.now().minus(Period.ofDays((new Random().nextInt(365 * 70))));
System.out.println("date and time :: " + date.toString());
return formatDate(date) ;
}
public static String formatDate(LocalDate date){
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'");
return dateFormat.format(date);
}
But in the line dateFormat.format(date), it complains with:
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Cannot format given Object as a Date
The second problem is that, the output of print does not contain the time:
date :: 1998-12-24
I don't know how to get it to work.

Never format the java.time types using SimpleDateFormat
Using the SimpleDateFormat, you are supposed to format only legacy date-time types e.g. java.util.Date. In order to format the java.time date-time types, you need to use DateTimeFormatter.
Never enclose Z within single quotes
It's a blunder to enclose Z within single quotes in a format. The symbol Z stands for zulu and specifies UTC+00:00. If you enclose it within single quotes, it will simply mean character literal, Z and won't function as UTC+00:00 on parsing.
You do not need to use a formatter explicitly
For this requirement, you do not need to use a formatter explicitly because the OffsetDateTime#toString already returns the string in the format that you need. However, if the number of seconds in an OffsetDateTime object is zero, the same and the subsequent smaller units are truncated by OffsetDateTime#toString. If you need the full format irrespective of the value of seconds, then, of course, you will have to use DateTimeFormatter.
import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.Period;
import java.time.ZoneOffset;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.util.Random;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(generateRandomDateAndTimeInString());
}
public static String generateRandomDateAndTimeInString() {
LocalDate date = LocalDate.now().minus(Period.ofDays((new Random().nextInt(365 * 70))));
System.out.println("date and time :: " + date.toString());
return formatDate(date);
}
public static String formatDate(LocalDate date) {
DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("uuuu-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssX");
// return date.atStartOfDay().atOffset(ZoneOffset.UTC).toString();
return date.atStartOfDay().atOffset(ZoneOffset.UTC).format(dtf);
}
}
A sample run:
date and time :: 1996-09-05
1996-09-05T00:00:00Z
Note that the date-time API of java.util and their formatting API, SimpleDateFormat are outdated and error-prone. It is recommended to stop using them completely and switch to the modern date-time API.
For any reason, if you have to stick to Java 6 or Java 7, you can use ThreeTen-Backport which backports most of the java.time functionality to Java 6 & 7.
If you are working for an Android project and your Android API level is still not compliant with Java-8, check Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring and How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project.
Learn more about the modern date-time API from Trail: Date Time.
If you still need to use SimpleDateFormat for whatsoever reason:
Convert LocalDate to ZonedDateTime with ZoneOffset.UTC and at the start of the day ➡️ Convert ZonedDateTime to Instant ➡️ Obtain java.util.Date object from Instant.
public static String formatDate(LocalDate date) {
Date utilDate = Date.from(date.atStartOfDay(ZoneOffset.UTC).toInstant());
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssX");
return dateFormat.format(utilDate);
}

If you want to ignore the time part then you can use ZonedDateTime like this:
DateTimeFormatter dateFormat = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ");
return ZonedDateTime.of(
date,
LocalTime.MIN,
ZoneId.of("Europe/Paris")
).format(dateFormat);
Output example
2013-10-19T00:00:00+0200
Or much better, you can use just toString to get a formatted date as a String with the default format of ZonedDateTime:
return ZonedDateTime.of(
date,
LocalTime.MIN,
ZoneId.of("Europe/Paris")
).toString();
Output
2013-10-19T00:00+02:00[Europe/Paris]
Note
This date are always with 00:00:00 for time part, because we are using LocalTime.MIN
Also, you can change the ZoneId to the expected Zone, this was just an example.
Important
DateFormat and SimpleDateFormat are legacy library, so please don't mix them with the java.time library, in the top you are using LocalDate which mean you are using this java.time library so keep going with it in all your code.

ZoneOffset utc = ZoneOffset.UTC;
LocalDate today = LocalDate.now(utc);
LocalDate seventyYearsAgo = today.minusYears(70);
int totalDays = Math.toIntExact(ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(seventyYearsAgo, today));
LocalDate date = today.minusDays(new Random().nextInt(totalDays));
String dateString = date.atStartOfDay(utc).toString();
System.out.println("date and time :: " + dateString);
Example output:
date and time :: 1983-08-24T00:00Z
Points to note:
Let java.time convert from years to days. It gives more readable and more correct code (a year is not always 365 days).
To have time of day and UTC offset in the string, convert a ZonedDateTime or an OffsetDateTime since such objects hold time of day and offset. A LocalDate does not. It’s a date without time of day and without offset from UTC. The Z you asked for denotes an offset of 0 from UTC.
If you want hours, minutes and seconds in the output too, you can have that by counting seconds rather than days. In this case use OffsetDateTime for the entire operation (or ZonedDateTime if in a time zone different from UTC).
ZoneOffset utc = ZoneOffset.UTC;
OffsetDateTime today = OffsetDateTime.now(utc).truncatedTo(ChronoUnit.SECONDS);
OffsetDateTime seventyYearsAgo = today.minusYears(70);
long totalSeconds = ChronoUnit.SECONDS.between(seventyYearsAgo, today);
OffsetDateTime date = today.minusSeconds(ThreadLocalRandom.current().nextLong(0, totalSeconds));
String dateString = date.toString();
System.out.println("date and time :: " + dateString);
date and time :: 1996-09-21T06:49:56Z
I am using ThreadLocalRandom because it can generate a random long value in a specified interval. Funnily ThreadLocalRandom has a lot of convenient methods that Random hasn’t got.

Date formatting not working

I am trying to convert the string to date and i want that date to be in this format 'yyyy-MM-d HH:mm:ss' and i no how to get this format in string my question is i want to get Date in above format not as string but as 'Date '?
i am doing in this way
for(int k=0;k<12;k++)//for the months
{
//i have added if condtion for the months with 31 and 30 and 28 days
Calendar dateFromCal = Calendar.getInstance();
dateFromCal.setTime(date);
dateFromCal.set(year, k, 1, 0, 0, 0);
Calendar dateToCal = Calendar.getInstance();
dateToCal.setTime(date);
dateToCal.set(year, k, 31, 23, 59, 59);
//i have set the date format as 'yyyy:MM:dd HH:mm:ss'
dateFrom = dateFormat.format(dateFromCal.getTime());
dateTo = dateFormat.format(dateToCal.getTime());
fromdate = (Date)dateFormat.parse(dateFrom);
todate = (Date)dateFormat.parse(dateTo);
}
by using above code i am getting the date in the following format
Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 GMT 2014
but i want the date format to be as
2014-11-01 00:00:00
NOTE:I want this result as Date not as String
Please give me solution for this
Thanks....

i want to get Date in above format not as string but as 'Date '?
You're asking for a Date in a particular format - that's like saying "I want an int in hex format." A Date doesn't have a format - it's just an instant in time. It doesn't know about a calendar system or a time zone - it's just a number of milliseconds since the Unix epoch. If you want a formatted value, that's a string.
You should probably just keep the Date as it is, and format it later on, closer to the UI.

NOTE:I want this result as Date not as String
Short answer: It is NOT possible.
Details:
A java.util.Date object simply represents an instant on the timeline — a wrapper around the number of milliseconds since the UNIX epoch (January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT). Since it does not hold any timezone information, its toString function applies the JVM's timezone to return a String in the format, EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy, derived from this milliseconds value. To get the String representation of the java.util.Date object in a different format and timezone, you need to use SimpleDateFormat with the desired format and the applicable timezone e.g.
Date date = new Date();
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXX", Locale.ENGLISH);
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("America/New_York"));
String strDateNewYork = sdf.format(date);
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("Etc/UTC"));
String strDateUtc = sdf.format(date);
In fact, none of the standard Date-Time classes has an attribute to hold the formatting information. Even if some library or custom class promises to do so, it is breaking the Single Responsibility Principle. A Date-Time object is supposed to store the information about Date, Time, Timezone etc., not about the formatting. The only way to represent a Date-Time object in the desired format is by formatting it into a String using a Date-Time parsing/formatting type:
For the modern Date-Time API: java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter
For the legacy Date-Time API: java.text.SimpleDateFormat
java.time
The java.util Date-Time API and their formatting API, SimpleDateFormat are outdated and error-prone. It is recommended to stop using them completely and switch to the modern Date-Time API*.
Also, quoted below is a notice from the home page of Joda-Time:
Note that from Java SE 8 onwards, users are asked to migrate to java.time (JSR-310) - a core part of the JDK which replaces this project.
Solution using java.time, the modern Date-Time API:
import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.LocalTime;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.time.temporal.TemporalAdjusters;
import java.util.Locale;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
int year = 2021;
int month = 6;
int hour = 23;
int minute = 59;
int second = 59;
LocalDateTime ldt = LocalDate.of(year, month, 1)
.with(TemporalAdjusters.lastDayOfMonth())
.atTime(LocalTime.of(hour, minute, second));
// Default format i.e. ldt#toString
System.out.println(ldt);
// Custom format
DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("uuuu-MM-dd HH:mm:ss", Locale.ENGLISH);
String formatted = dtf.format(ldt);
System.out.println(formatted);
}
}
Output:
2021-06-30T23:59:59
2021-06-30 23:59:59
ONLINE DEMO
Learn more about the modern Date-Time API from Trail: Date Time.
* For any reason, if you have to stick to Java 6 or Java 7, you can use ThreeTen-Backport which backports most of the java.time functionality to Java 6 & 7. If you are working for an Android project and your Android API level is still not compliant with Java-8, check Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring and How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project.

I had same problem with one API that was expecting particular format (javax.xml.datatype.XMLGregorianCalendar). In my case I solve this by the help of java 7
and
my_date.setTimezone(DatatypeConstants.FIELD_UNDEFINED);
By doing so you can get your final result for date with 00:00:00.

This is a simple method that takes care of formatting from String to Date:
` see code below:
public XMLGregorianCalendar formatToGregorianDate(String myDate) {
//actual Date format should be "dd-MMM-yy", but SimpleDateFormat accepts only this one
SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
Date date = null;
try {
//Date is accepted only without time or zone
date = simpleDateFormat.parse(myDate.substring(0, 10));
} catch (ParseException e) {
System.out.println("Date can't be parsed to required format!");
e.printStackTrace();
}
GregorianCalendar gregorianCalendar = (GregorianCalendar) GregorianCalendar.getInstance();
gregorianCalendar.setTime(date);
XMLGregorianCalendar result = null;
try {
result = DatatypeFactory.newInstance().newXMLGregorianCalendar(gregorianCalendar);
//date must be sent without time
result.setTimezone(DatatypeConstants.FIELD_UNDEFINED);
} catch (DatatypeConfigurationException e) {
System.out.println("XMLGregorianCalendar can't parse the Date format!");
e.printStackTrace();
}
return result;
}`
Maybe you'll just need to adapt it for your needs, I don't know what do you need.
FYI - Note that I'm using java.util.Date. Maybe there is better logic, but this one works for sure.
Hope it helps.

Millis for a given date are wrong using Date.parse(dateString)

I have a date string of 1/1/1970 8:00 AM
The correct millis should be 8 hours * 60 minutes per hour * 60000 milliseconds per minute = 28800000
However, using Date.parse(dateString) returns 50400000
What am I not understanding?
Edit
I originally tried using date.getTime();
Here's my original code:
SimpleDateFormat dateFmt = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy h:mm a");
dateFmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.append(month).append("/");
sb.append(day).append("/");
sb.append(year).append(" ");
sb.append(pad(hour)).append(":");
sb.append(pad(minute)).append(" ");;
sb.append(ampm);
Date date = new Date();
date = dateFmt.parse(sb.toString());
date.getTime()

This is almost certainly the problem:
If no time zone is specified, the local time zone is assumed.
My guess is that you're in a time zone which was at UTC-6 at the Unix epoch, so 8am local time was 2pm UTC.
Then there's the more fundamental problem of you using deprecated methods when there are better alternative (SimpleDateFormat, which allows you to set the time zone) available. Methods are deprecated for a reason. You shouldn't just use deprecated methods regardless, otherwise you'll keep running into things like this.
In fact, you'd be better off using Joda Time if you possibly can - but at least stay away from the deprecated methods in Date.
Sample code:
SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy h:mm aa", Locale.US);
format.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
long millis = format.parse(text).getTime();
You may want to change dd/MM to MM/dd, depending on what format your dates are going to be in - we can't tell from "01/01". Note the explicit setting of both time zone and locale.

Its because of your local timezone. Use Simple date format with timezone as below to get your desired value against UTC timezone:
DateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm a");
String dateS = "1/1/1970 8:00 AM";
format.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
format.setLenient(true);
Date date = format.parse(dateS);
System.out.println(date.getTime()); //<-- prints 28800000
or more compact:
DateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm a");
format.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
Date date = format.parse("1/1/1970 8:00 AM");
System.out.println(date.getTime()); //<-- prints 28800000

java.time
The java.util Date-Time API and their formatting API, SimpleDateFormat are outdated and error-prone. It is recommended to stop using them completely and switch to the modern Date-Time API*.
Also, quoted below is a notice from the home page of Joda-Time:
Note that from Java SE 8 onwards, users are asked to migrate to java.time (JSR-310) - a core part of the JDK which replaces this project.
Solution using java.time, the modern Date-Time API:
You do not need to form the string: You can use LocalDateTime#of to create an instance of LocalDateTime which can be converted into an Instant in order to get the number of milliseconds from the Unix epoch.
import java.time.Instant;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.ZoneOffset;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
int year = 1970, month = 1, dayOfMonth = 1, hour = 8, minute = 0;
LocalDateTime ldt = LocalDateTime.of(year, month, dayOfMonth, hour, minute);
Instant instant = ldt.toInstant(ZoneOffset.UTC);
System.out.println(instant.toEpochMilli());
}
}
Output:
28800000
ONLINE DEMO
If you already have a date-time string in the given format:
import java.time.Instant;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.ZoneOffset;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.util.Locale;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("M/d/u h:m a", Locale.ENGLISH);
String strDateTime = "1/1/1970 8:00 AM";
LocalDateTime ldt = LocalDateTime.parse(strDateTime, dtf);
Instant instant = ldt.toInstant(ZoneOffset.UTC);
System.out.println(instant.toEpochMilli());
}
}
Output:
28800000
ONLINE DEMO
An Instant represents an instantaneous point on the timeline in UTC.
Learn more about the modern Date-Time API from Trail: Date Time.
* For any reason, if you have to stick to Java 6 or Java 7, you can use ThreeTen-Backport which backports most of the java.time functionality to Java 6 & 7. If you are working for an Android project and your Android API level is still not compliant with Java-8, check Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring and How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project.

How to properly format the date?

The function shown below returns the date, e.g. "Sat Sep 8 00:00 PDT 2010". But I expected to get the date in the following format "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm". What's wrong in this code?
String date = "2010-08-25";
String time = "00:00";
Also in one laptop the output for,e.g. 23:45 is 11:45. How can I define exactly the 24 format?
private static Date date(final String date,final String time) {
final Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
String[] ymd = date.split("-");
int year = Integer.parseInt(ymd[0]);
int month = Integer.parseInt(ymd[1]);
int day = Integer.parseInt(ymd[2]);
String[] hm = time.split(":");
int hour = Integer.parseInt(hm[0]);
int minute = Integer.parseInt(hm[1]);
calendar.set(Calendar.YEAR,year);
calendar.set(Calendar.MONTH,month);
calendar.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH,day);
calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR,hour);
calendar.set(Calendar.MINUTE,minute);
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm");
Date d = calendar.getTime();
String dateString= dateFormat.format(d);
Date result = null;
try {
result = (Date)dateFormat.parse(dateString);
} catch (ParseException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return result;
}

What's wrong in this code?
You seem to be expecting the returned Date object to know about the format you've parsed it from - it doesn't. It's just an instant in time. When you want a date in a particular format, you use SimpleDateFormat.format, it's as simple as that. (Well, or you use a better library such as Joda Time.)
Think of the Date value as being like an int - an int is just a number; you don't have "an int in hex" or "an int in decimal"... you make that decision when you want to format it. The same is true with Date.
(Likewise a Date isn't associated with a specific calendar, time zone or locale. It's just an instant in time.)

How did you print out the return result? If you simply use System.out.println(date("2010-08-25", "00:00") then you might get Sat Sep 8 00:00 PDT 2010 depending on your current date time format setting in your running machine. But well what you can do is:
Date d = date("2010-08-25", "00:00");
System.out.println(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm").format(d));
Just curious why do you bother with this whole process as you can simple get the result by concatenate your initial date and time string.

just use SimpleDateFormat class
See
date formatting java simpledateformat

The standard library does not support a formatted Date-Time object.
The function shown below returns the date, e.g. "Sat Sep 8 00:00 PDT
2010". But I expected to get the date in the following format
"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm".
The standard Date-Time classes do not have any attribute to hold the formatting information. Even if some library or custom class promises to do so, it is breaking the Single Responsibility Principle. A Date-Time object is supposed to store the information about Date, Time, Timezone etc., not about the formatting. The only way to represent a Date-Time object in the desired format is by formatting it into a String using a Date-Time parsing/formatting type:
For the modern Date-Time API: java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter
For the legacy Date-Time API: java.text.SimpleDateFormat
About java.util.Date:
A java.util.Date object simply represents the number of milliseconds since the standard base time known as "the epoch", namely January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT (or UTC). Since it does not hold any timezone information, its toString function applies the JVM's timezone to return a String in the format, EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy, derived from this milliseconds value. To get the String representation of the java.util.Date object in a different format and timezone, you need to use SimpleDateFormat with the desired format and the applicable timezone e.g.
Date date = new Date(); // In your case, it will be Date date = date("2010-08-25", "00:00");
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm", Locale.ENGLISH);
// sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("America/New_York")); // For a timezone-specific value
String strDate = sdf.format(date);
System.out.println(strDate);
Your function, Date date(String, String) is error-prone.
You can simply combine the date and time string with a separator and then use SimpleDateFormat to parse the combined string e.g. you can combine them with a whitespace character as the separator to use the same SimpleDateFormat shown above.
private static Date date(final String date, final String time) throws ParseException {
return sdf.parse(date + " " + time);
}
Note that using a separator is not a mandatory requirement e.g. you can do it as sdf.parse(date + time) but for this, you need to change the format of sdf to yyyy-MM-ddHH:mm which, although correct, may look confusing.
Demo:
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Locale;
public class Main {
static final SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm", Locale.ENGLISH);
public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
Date date = date("2010-08-25", "00:00");
String strDate = sdf.format(date);
System.out.println(strDate);
}
private static Date date(final String date, final String time) throws ParseException {
return sdf.parse(date + " " + time);
}
}
Output:
2010-08-25 00:00
ONLINE DEMO
Switch to java.time API.
The java.util Date-Time API and their formatting API, SimpleDateFormat are outdated and error-prone. It is recommended to stop using them completely and switch to the modern Date-Time API*.
Solution using java.time, the modern Date-Time API:
import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.LocalTime;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.util.Locale;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
LocalDateTime ldt = localDateTime("2010-08-25", "00:00");
// Default format i.e. the value of ldt.toString()
System.out.println(ldt);
// Custom format
DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("uuuu-MM-dd HH:mm", Locale.ENGLISH);
String strDate = dtf.format(ldt);
System.out.println(strDate);
}
private static LocalDateTime localDateTime(final String date, final String time) {
return LocalDateTime.of(LocalDate.parse(date), LocalTime.parse(time));
}
}
Output:
2010-08-25T00:00
2010-08-25 00:00
ONLINE DEMO
You must have noticed that I have not used DateTimeFormatter for parsing the String date and String time. It is because your date and time strings conform to the ISO 8601 standards. The modern Date-Time API is based on ISO 8601 and does not require using a DateTimeFormatter object explicitly as long as the Date-Time string conforms to the ISO 8601 standards.
Learn more about the modern Date-Time API from Trail: Date Time.
* For any reason, if you have to stick to Java 6 or Java 7, you can use ThreeTen-Backport which backports most of the java.time functionality to Java 6 & 7. If you are working for an Android project and your Android API level is still not compliant with Java-8, check Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring and How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project.

I'm surprise you are getting different date outputs on the different computers. In theory, SimpleDateFormat pattern "H" is supposed to output the date in a 24h format. Do you get 11:45pm or 11:45am?
Although it should not affect the result, SimpleDateFormat and Calendar are Locale dependent, so you can try to specify the exact locale that you want to use (Locale.US) and see if that makes any difference.
As a final suggestion, if you want, you can also try to use the Joda-Time library (DateTime) to do the date manipulation instead. It makes it significantly easier working with date objects.
DateTime date = new DateTime( 1991, 10, 13, 23, 39, 0);
String dateString = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm").format( date.toDate());
DateTime newDate = DateTime.parse( dateString, DateTimeFormat.forPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm"));

Timezone conversion

I need to convert from one timezone to another timezone in my project.
I am able to convert from my current timezone to another but not from a different timezone to another.
For example I am in India, and I am able to convert from India to US using Date d=new Date(); and assigning it to a calendar object and setting the time zone.
However, I cannot do this from different timezone to another timezone. For example, I am in India, but I am having trouble converting timezones from the US to the UK.

tl;dr
ZonedDateTime.now( ZoneId.of( "Pacific/Auckland" )) // Current moment in a particular time zone.
.withZoneSameInstant( ZoneId.of( "Asia/Kolkata" )) // Same moment adjusted into another time zone.
Details
The java.util.Date class has no time zone assigned†, yet it's toString implementation confusingly applies the JVM's current default time zone.
Avoid java.util.Date & .Calendar
This is one of many reasons to avoid the notoriously troublesome java.util.Date, .Calendar, and SimpleDateFormat classes bundled with Java. Avoid them. Instead use either:
The java.time package built into Java 8 and inspired by Joda-Time.
Joda-Time
java.time
Java 8 and later has the java.time package built-in. This package was inspired by Joda-Time. While they share some similarities and class names, they are different; each has features the other lacks. One notable difference is that java.time avoids constructors, instead uses static instantiation methods. Both frameworks are led by the same man, Stephen Colbourne.
Much of the java.time functionality has been back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in the ThreeTen-Backport project. Further adapted to Android in the ThreeTenABP project.
In the case of this Question, they work in the same fashion. Specify a time zone, and call a now method to get current moment, then create a new instance based on the old immutable instance to adjust for time zone.
Note the two different time zone classes. One is a named time zone including all the rules for Daylight Saving Time and other such anomalies plus an offset from UTC while the other is only the offset.
ZoneId zoneMontréal = ZoneId.of("America/Montreal");
ZonedDateTime nowMontréal = ZonedDateTime.now ( zoneMontréal );
ZoneId zoneTokyo = ZoneId.of("Asia/Tokyo");
ZonedDateTime nowTokyo = nowMontréal.withZoneSameInstant( zoneTokyo );
ZonedDateTime nowUtc = nowMontréal.withZoneSameInstant( ZoneOffset.UTC );
Joda-Time
Some example code in Joda-Time 2.3 follows. Search StackOveflow for many more examples and much discussion.
DateTimeZone timeZoneLondon = DateTimeZone.forID( "Europe/London" );
DateTimeZone timeZoneKolkata = DateTimeZone.forID( "Asia/Kolkata" );
DateTimeZone timeZoneNewYork = DateTimeZone.forID( "America/New_York" );
DateTime nowLondon = DateTime.now( timeZoneLondon ); // Assign a time zone rather than rely on implicit default time zone.
DateTime nowKolkata = nowLondon.withZone( timeZoneKolkata );
DateTime nowNewYork = nowLondon.withZone( timeZoneNewYork );
DateTime nowUtc = nowLondon.withZone( DateTimeZone.UTC ); // Built-in constant for UTC.
We have four representations of the same moment in the timeline of the Universe.
†Actually the java.util.Date class does have a time zone buried within its source code. But the class ignores that time zone for most practical purposes. So, as shorthand, it’s often said that j.u.Date has no time zone assigned. Confusing? Yes. Avoid the mess that is j.u.Date and go with Joda-Time and/or java.time.

Some examples
Convert time between timezone
Converting Times Between Time Zones
import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.GregorianCalendar;
import java.util.TimeZone;
public class TimeZoneExample {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Create a calendar object and set it time based on the local
// time zone
Calendar localTime = Calendar.getInstance();
localTime.set(Calendar.HOUR, 17);
localTime.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 15);
localTime.set(Calendar.SECOND, 20);
int hour = localTime.get(Calendar.HOUR);
int minute = localTime.get(Calendar.MINUTE);
int second = localTime.get(Calendar.SECOND);
// Print the local time
System.out.printf("Local time : %02d:%02d:%02d\n", hour, minute, second);
// Create a calendar object for representing a Germany time zone. Then we
// wet the time of the calendar with the value of the local time
Calendar germanyTime = new GregorianCalendar(TimeZone.getTimeZone("Europe/Berlin"));
germanyTime.setTimeInMillis(localTime.getTimeInMillis());
hour = germanyTime.get(Calendar.HOUR);
minute = germanyTime.get(Calendar.MINUTE);
second = germanyTime.get(Calendar.SECOND);
// Print the local time in Germany time zone
System.out.printf("Germany time: %02d:%02d:%02d\n", hour, minute, second);
}
}

Date date = new Date();
String formatPattern = ....;
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(formatPattern);
TimeZone T1;
TimeZone T2;
// set the Calendar of sdf to timezone T1
sdf.setTimeZone(T1);
System.out.println(sdf.format(date));
// set the Calendar of sdf to timezone T2
sdf.setTimeZone(T2);
System.out.println(sdf.format(date));
// Use the 'calOfT2' instance-methods to get specific info
// about the time-of-day for date 'date' in timezone T2.
Calendar calOfT2 = sdf.getCalendar();

The "default" time zone can be avoided entirely by just setting the time zone appropriately for the Calendar object. However, I would personally suggest that you use Joda Time as a far superior API for date and time operations in Java. Amongst other things, time zone conversion is very simple in Joda.
It's not clear what your current code looks like and why you're only able to convert via the default time zone, but in Joda Time you'd just specify the time zone explicitly when creating (say) a DateTime object, and then use withZone(DateTimeZone zone).
If you could tell us more about how you're getting input data, we could give a fuller example.

You can use the following code snippet
String dateString = "14 Jul 2014 00:11:04 CEST";
date = formatter.parse(dateString);
System.out.println(formatter.format(date));
// Set the formatter to use a different timezone - Indochina Time
formatter.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("Asia/Bangkok"));
System.out.println("ICT time : "+formatter.format(date));

If you don't want to use Joda, here is a deterministic way using the built in libraries.
First off I recommend that you force your JVM to default to a timezone. This addresses the issues you might run into as you move your JVM from one machine to another that are set to different timezones but your source data is always a particular timezone. For example, lets say your data is always PDT/PST time zone, but you run on a box that is set to UTC timezone.
The following code snippet sets the default timezone in my JVM:
//You can either pass the JVM a parameter that
//enforces a TZ: java -Duser.timezone=UTC or you can do it
//programatically like this
TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone("America/Los_Angeles");
TimeZone.setDefault(tz);
Now lets say your source date is coming in as PDT/PST but you need to convert it to UTC. These are the steps:
DateFormat dateFormatUtc = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
dateFormatUtc.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
String dateStrInPDT = "2016-05-19 10:00:00";
Date dateInPDT = dateFormat.parse(dateStrInPDT);
String dateInUtc = dateFormatUtc.format(dateInPDT);
System.out.println("Date In UTC is " + dateInUtc);
The output would be:
Date In UTC is 2016-05-19 17:00:00

java.time
The java.util Date-Time API and their formatting API, SimpleDateFormat are outdated and error-prone. It is recommended to stop using them completely and switch to the modern Date-Time API*.
Also, quoted below is a notice at the Home Page of Joda-Time:
Note that from Java SE 8 onwards, users are asked to migrate to java.time (JSR-310) - a core part of the JDK which replaces this project.
How to switch to the modern API?
Convert java.util.Date to Instant using Date#toInstant e.g.
Date date = new Date();
Instant instant = date.toInstant();
System.out.println(instant); // 2021-05-30T13:10:01.890Z
What's Instant got to do with my requirement?
An Instant represents an instantaneous point on the timeline in UTC. The Z in the sample output is the timezone designator for a zero-timezone offset. It stands for Zulu and specifies the Etc/UTC timezone (which has the timezone offset of +00:00 hours). Its zero-timezone offset makes it independent of timezones i.e. an instant is the same at every place in the world. It's analogous to water in the physical world.
You can mix a timezone (i.e. ZoneId) with an Instant by calling Instant.atZone to get the corresponding Date-Time in that timezone (i.e. ZonedDateTime).
Similarly, you can mix a timezone offset (i.e. ZoneOffset) with an Instant by calling Instant#atOffset to get the corresponding Date-Time with that timezone offset (i.e. OffsetDateTime).
In the reverse way, you can also get an Instant by calling toInstant on the ZonedDateTime or OffsetDateTime.
import java.time.Instant;
import java.time.OffsetDateTime;
import java.time.ZoneId;
import java.time.ZoneOffset;
import java.time.ZonedDateTime;
import java.util.Date;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Date date = new Date();
Instant instant = date.toInstant();
System.out.println(instant);
// The corresponding Date-Time in Chicago
ZonedDateTime zdtChicago = instant.atZone(ZoneId.of("America/Chicago"));
System.out.println(zdtChicago);
// The corresponding Date-Time in Kolkata
ZonedDateTime zdtKolkata = instant.atZone(ZoneId.of("Asia/Kolkata"));
System.out.println(zdtKolkata);
// The corresponding Date-Time at timezone offset of -05:00 hours
OffsetDateTime odtAtOffsetMinus0500 = instant.atOffset(ZoneOffset.of("-05:00"));
System.out.println(odtAtOffsetMinus0500);
// The corresponding Date-Time at timezone offset of +05:30 hours
OffsetDateTime odtAtOffset0530 = instant.atOffset(ZoneOffset.of("+05:30"));
System.out.println(odtAtOffset0530);
}
}
Output:
2021-05-30T13:44:26.599Z
2021-05-30T08:44:26.599-05:00[America/Chicago]
2021-05-30T19:14:26.599+05:30[Asia/Kolkata]
2021-05-30T08:44:26.599-05:00
2021-05-30T19:14:26.599+05:30
So far you have learnt a simple way to convert an Instant (which you have created directly or obtained from a java.util.Date or a ZonedDateTime or an OffsetDateTime) to a Date-Time in any timezone or at any timezone offset.
Alternatively
There is another way to convert a ZonedDateTime from one timezone to another. Again, there is a similar method to convert an OffsetDateTime from one timezone offset to another.
import java.time.OffsetDateTime;
import java.time.ZoneId;
import java.time.ZoneOffset;
import java.time.ZonedDateTime;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Current Date-Time in Chicago
ZonedDateTime zdtChicago = ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId.of("America/Chicago"));
System.out.println(zdtChicago);
// The corresponding Date-Time in Kolkata
ZonedDateTime zdtKolkata = zdtChicago.withZoneSameInstant(ZoneId.of("Asia/Kolkata"));
System.out.println(zdtKolkata);
// Current Date-Time at a timezone offset of -05:00 hours
OffsetDateTime odtAtOffsetMinus0500 = OffsetDateTime.now(ZoneOffset.of("-05:00"));
System.out.println(odtAtOffsetMinus0500);
// The corresponding Date-Time at timezone offset of +05:30 hours
OffsetDateTime odtAtOffset0530 = odtAtOffsetMinus0500.withOffsetSameInstant(ZoneOffset.of("+05:30"));
System.out.println(odtAtOffset0530);
}
}
Output:
2021-05-30T10:03:59.895923-05:00[America/Chicago]
2021-05-30T20:33:59.895923+05:30[Asia/Kolkata]
2021-05-30T10:03:59.897782-05:00
2021-05-30T20:33:59.897782+05:30
When to use ZonedDateTime and when to use OffsetDateTime?
If you are dealing with a fixed timezone offset value e.g. 02:00 hours, use OffsetDateTime. It is also supported by all JDBC drivers. Check this answer to learn more about it.
If you want the timezone offset to change automatically based on DST, use ZonedDateTime. Unfortunately, ZonedDateTime is not supported by JDBC.
Learn more about java.time, the modern Date-Time API* from Trail: Date Time.
* For any reason, if you have to stick to Java 6 or Java 7, you can use ThreeTen-Backport which backports most of the java.time functionality to Java 6 & 7. If you are working for an Android project and your Android API level is still not compliant with Java-8, check Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring and How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project.

You could use the java.time.ZoneDateTime#ofInstant() method:
import java.time.*;
public class TimeZonesConversion {
static ZonedDateTime convert(ZonedDateTime time, ZoneId newTimeZone) {
return ZonedDateTime.ofInstant(
time.toInstant(),
newTimeZone);
};
public static void main(String... args) {
ZonedDateTime mstTime = ZonedDateTime.of(LocalDateTime.now(), ZoneId.of("-07"));
ZonedDateTime localTime = convert(mstTime, Clock.systemDefaultZone().getZone());
System.out.println("MST(" + mstTime + ") = " + localTime);
}
}

Depends on what you really mean by "converting".
It MAY be as simple as setting the time zone in the FORMATTER, and not mucking with Calendar at all.
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
TimeZone tzUTC = TimeZone.getTimeZone( "UTC" );
TimeZone tzPST = TimeZone.getTimeZone( "PST8PDT" );
DateFormat dtfmt = new SimpleDateFormat( "EEE, yyyy-MM-dd KK:mm a z" );
dtfmt.setTimeZone( tzUTC );
System.out.println( "UTC: " + dtfmt.format( cal.getTime() ));
dtfmt.setTimeZone( tzPST );
System.out.println( "PST: " + dtfmt.format( cal.getTime() ));

This is not the answer, but could help someone trying to generate dates with same timezone and apply another timezone's offset.
It is useful when your application server is running in one timezone and your database in another.
public static Date toGreekTimezone (Date date) {
ZoneId greek = ZoneId.of(EUROPE_ATHENS);
ZonedDateTime greekDate = ZonedDateTime.ofInstant(date.toInstant(), greek);
ZoneId def = ZoneId.systemDefault();
ZonedDateTime defDate = greekDate.withZoneSameLocal(def);
return Date.from(defDate.toInstant());
}

You can do something like this to get the current time in another time zone.
Calendar japanCal = new GregorianCalendar(TimeZone.getTimeZone("Japan"));
japanCal.setTimeInMillis(local.getTimeInMillis());

here a story:
my user in US enters a date in a web page. My server gets this as a java.util.Date object. Date objects have no notion of time zone.
so let's say user entered 11PM(== 4AM london time). For her this was 11PM US time.
Your server gets this and interprets this as 11PM of JVM's timezone.
but what you need is a Date object that represents 4AM.
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
String timeStringInUS = sdf.format("2020-05-04 23:00:00");
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatInUS = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatInUK = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
dateFormatInUS.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("America/New_York"));
dateFormatInUK.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("Europe/London"));
Date dateInUS = dateFormatInUS.parse(timeStringInUS);
Date dateInUK = sdf.parse(dateFormatInUK.format(dateInUS));

public static String convertTimeBasedOnTimeZoneAndTimePattern(String dateTime,
String fromTimeZone, String toTimeZone, String originalTimePattern, String timePattern) {
DateTimeFormatter formatterNew = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern(timePattern);
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern(originalTimePattern);
TemporalAccessor temporalAccessor = formatter.parse(dateTime);
ZoneId z = ZoneId.of(fromTimeZone);
LocalDateTime localDateTime = LocalDateTime.from(temporalAccessor);
ZonedDateTime zonedDateTime = ZonedDateTime.of(localDateTime, z);
Instant instant = Instant.from(zonedDateTime);
ZonedDateTime fromZonedDateTime = instant.atZone(ZoneId.of(toTimeZone));
String fromZoneDateTime = fromZonedDateTime.format(formatterNew);
return fromZoneDateTime;}
To convert any time to the specific timezone (for example: UTC -> local timezone and vise versa) with any time pattern you can use java.time library.
This method will take time patterns (original and required format) and timezone (original time zone and required timezone) will give String as output. you can convert String to date by using SimpleDateFormatter or also use parse method of the ZoneDateTime/Instant class.
To convert String to date:
public static final DATE_FORMAT="yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSSSS";
public static Date convertStringToDate(String date) {
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat(DATE_FORMAT);
Date parsedDate = null;
try {
parsedDate = formatter.parse(date);
} catch (Exception e) {
throw new DateTimeParseException("Please provide date time in proper format", null, 0, null);
}
return parsedDate;
}
To convert date to String:
public String convertTextDateToDate(Date textDate) {
// SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("EE MMM dd HH:mm:ss z yyyy", //Locale.ENGLISH);
SimpleDateFormat date = new SimpleDateFormat(DATE_FORMAT);
String dateFormatted = date.format(textDate);
return dateFormatted;
}