Weird Date Format To Java Date - java

I got the following date format that I get from an API (Yes I tried to get them to change the API... dailywtf story):
\/Date(1310481956000+0200)\/
How can I convert this into a Java Date? (java.util.Date)
This comes from a .NET JSON web service.

Without knowing what the date/time string stands for, let me make a guess.
The 1310481956000 looks to be milliseconds after epoch, and the +0200 an offset relative to GMT.
The following code seem to indicate it as well:
final TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT+0200");
final Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(tz);
cal.setTimeInMillis(1310481956000L);
final SimpleDateFormat f = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss z");
f.setTimeZone(tz);
System.out.println(f.format(cal.getTime()));
Prints 2011-07-12 16:45:56 GMT+02:00

How can I convert this into a Java Date? (java.util.Date)
First, get "them" to clearly and precisely tell you exactly what that date format means. (If they won't or can't you could guess; see below.)
Next write a custom parser to parse the String and extract the information content.
Finally, convert the information content into a form that matches one of the Date constructors and create an instance.
My guess is that the 1310481956000 part is the number of milliseconds since the UNIX epoch (1970/01/01T00:00) and that the 0200 represents a timezone offset of 2 hours (MET?). However, you shouldn't rely on a guess. Get "them" to give you the specification, or at least a number of examples and the actual times/timezones that they correspond to.

You'll have to get the format from the API provider but it seems like a epoch + an offset for time zones. To convert it you could try.
final String fromAPI = "1310481956000+0200"
final String epochTime = fromAPI.substring(0, fromAPI.indexOf("+"));
final String timeZoneOffSet = fromAPI.substring(fromAPI.indexOf("+"), fromAPI.size());
Date date = new Date(Long.parseLong(epochTime));
Notice i'm not doing anything with the time zone (if that's what it is). You'll have to deal with that but this should get you on the right path.

tl;dr
Instant.ofEpochMilli(
java.lang.Long.parseLong( "1310481956000" )
).atOffset( ZoneOffset.of( "+0200" ) )
Using java.time
The accepted Answer is correct but outdated. The modern way to handle this is through the java.time classes.
The input is ambiguous. Is it a count from the Unix epoch reference date-time of first moment of 1970 in UTC 1970-01-01T00:00:00:Z and then adjusted by two hours ahead of UTC? If so, this example code seen here works.
First parse that input number as a Instant. The Instant class represents a moment on the timeline in UTC with a resolution of nanoseconds (up to nine (9) digits of a decimal fraction).
Extract the first portion of your string and parse as a long.
long millisSinceEpoch = java.lang.Long.parseLong( "1310481956000" );
Instant instant = Instant.ofEpochMilli( millisSinceEpoch );
instant.toString(): 2011-07-12T14:45:56Z
Extract the last portion of your string and parse as a ZoneOffset.
ZoneOffset offset = ZoneOffset.of( "+0200" );
Apply the offset to the Instant to get an OffsetDateTime.
OffsetDateTime odt = instant.atOffset( offset );
odt.toString(): 2011-07-12T16:45:56+02:00
Note that an offset-from-UTC is not a time zone. A zone is an offset plus a set of rules for handling anomalies such as Daylight Saving Time (DST).
Avoid java.util.Date whenever possible. But if you must use one, you can convert to/from java.time. Look to new conversion methods added to the old classes.
java.util.Date d = java.util.Date.from( odt.toInstant() );
d.toString(): Tue Jul 12 14:45:56 GMT 2011
See live code at IdeOne.com covering this entire example.
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.
Where to obtain the java.time classes?
Java SE 8 and SE 9 and later
Built-in.
Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes.
Java SE 6 and SE 7
Much of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
Android
The ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above) for Android specifically.
See How to use ThreeTenABP….
The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.

Related

Strings Dates in firebase, retrieve as miliseconds [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Android parsing String to Date time with SimpleDateFormat
(3 answers)
ParseException; must be caught (Try/Catch) (Java) [duplicate]
(1 answer)
Closed 2 years ago.
I have some dates in firebase and i need to retrieve as Miliseconds and do some operations with it.
the Date are like String in format "dd/MM/yyyy"
I tryed with a code like this, :
String myDate = "2014/10/29 18:10:45";
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss");
Date date = sdf.parse(myDate);
long millis = date.getTime();
My code, basically i tryed to get the storeged String from firebase and convert to a Date for compare with the current day and show the diference of days. the error that I have, is only in the word "parse" of my code
refresh.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
#Override
public void onClick(View v) {
String mydate = model.getParto();
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
Date date = sdf.parse(mydate);
}
});
but parse set an error
image of code and the string date in firebase
hope, someone can help
tl;dr
LocalDateTime
.parse(
"2014/10/29 18:10:45".replace( " " , "T" )
)
.atOffset( ZoneOffset.UTC )
.toInstant()
.toEpochMilli()
Need epoch reference
Representing a moment as a count of milliseconds requires a point in time as an epoch reference. You need to state the reference needed in your situation. I will assume the commonly used point of first moment of 1970 in UTC. But there are a couple dozen other points used by various systems. So you need to find out the meaning of your own data.
Need time zone or offset
Determining a moment requires more than a date and a time-of-day. You also need the context of a time zone or offset-from-UTC. Again, you need to specify this but did not. Is your example of ten minutes past six in the evening in Tokyo Japan, Toulouse France, or Toledo Ohio US? I will assume you mean an offset of zero hours-minutes-seconds. But again, you need to find out the meaning of your own data.
Avoid legacy date-time classes
Never use SimpleDateFormat, Date, or the other terrible date-time classes that were supplanted years ago by the modern java.time classes defined in JSR 310.
Date versus moment
Your Question in confused, referring to a date-only value as well as a date with time-of-day represented as milliseconds. These are two different kinds of data.
If representing a date-only, use LocalDate in Java and a type in your database akin to the SQL-standard DATE. I will ignore this date-only, and focus on tracking a moment.
Example code
Parse your input as LocalDateTime, after complying with standard ISO 8601 format by replacing SPACE in middle with a T.
A LocalDateTime does not represent a moment, is not a point on the timeline. You need to discover the zone/offset intended for you input, and apply. Apply the time zone intended for your input, to produce a ZonedDateTime. Or, if UTC (an offset of zero) was intended, apply a ZoneOffset to get an OffsetDateTime object. At this point we have determined a moment.
Extract a Instant object from the OffsetDateTime. Interrogate for a count of milliseconds since the epoch reference of 1970-01-01T00:00Z.
String myDate = "2014/10/29 18:10:45".replace( " " , "T" ) ; // Comply with ISO 8601 standard formatting.
LocalDateTime ldt = LocalDateTime.parse( input ) ;
OffsetDateTime odt = ldt.atOffset( ZoneOffset.UTC ) ; // Assuming your data was intended to represent a moment as seen in UTC, with an offset of zero hours-minutes-seconds.
Instant instant = odt.toInstant() ; // Basic building-block class in java.time, representing a moment as seen in UTC.
long millisecondsSinceEpoch1970 = instant.toEpochMilli() ;
Your title mentions Firebase, but that seems irrelevant to your Question. so I will ignore that topic.
All the content in this Answer has been covered many times already on Stack Overflow. Search to learn more.
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
You may exchange java.time objects directly with your database. Use a JDBC driver compliant with JDBC 4.2 or later. No need for strings, no need for java.sql.* classes. Hibernate 5 & JPA 2.2 support java.time.
Where to obtain the java.time classes?
Java SE 8, Java SE 9, Java SE 10, Java SE 11, and later - Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
Java 9 brought some minor features and fixes.
Java SE 6 and Java SE 7
Most of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
Android
Later versions of Android (26+) bundle implementations of the java.time classes.
For earlier Android (<26), a process known as API desugaring brings a subset of the java.time functionality not originally built into Android.
If the desugaring does not offer what you need, the ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above) to Android. See How to use ThreeTenABP….

Negative Values when calculating time of a java date

just a question what i am doing wrong. I have this code:
public static int berechneSekundenwert(String datum, String zeit) throws ParseException {
Date dt = new Date();
SimpleDateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat( "dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss" );
dt = df.parse( datum+" "+ zeit);
int gesamtzeit = (int)dt.getTime();
return gesamtzeit;
}
Now my import format is:
09.11.2019 01:30:17
What i want to do is calculate the time passed for these dates, so i
can later sort them by time. But i get negative values?!
Example output (passed time, date, daytime):
-2120215336 30.09.2019 12:03:35
1757321960 25.09.2019 16:06:25
-2111322336 30.09.2019 14:31:48
-1281127040 21.08.2019 12:05:36
-1280681040 21.08.2019 12:13:02
377782960 09.09.2019 16:54:06
1301386664 09.11.2019 01:30:17
710621960 13.09.2019 13:21:25
712564960 13.09.2019 13:53:48
Shouldn't they all be positive, since java states, that the getTime function measures the time since 01.01.1970
Anyone knows what i did wrong?
Computers use something called a timestamp to represent dates. In Java, Date::getTime() returns the milliseconds passed since 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z up to the date in question as long (64-bit integer).
In the code presented, this value is narrowed down to an int (32-bit integer). By narrowing the long to an int, the highest 32 bits get cut of. The largest value representable by an int is 2^31 - 1. A quick calculation shows that:
(2^31 - 1) (milliseconds)
/ 1000 (milliseconds per second)
/ 60 (seconds per minute)#
/ 60 (minutes per hour)
/ 24 (hours per day)
= 24.8551348032 (days)
This means that after roughly 25 days, the int will overflow (as it is defined in the Two's compliment). Not to mention that a later point in time could have a lower value than an earlier point in time, thus the negative values.
To fix this issue1, I would suggest to define gesamtzeit as long.
Two remarks on your code:
java.util.Date is regarded as outdated. I would suggest to use java.time.Instant instead.
I would suggest to use English in the source code, only exception being you use domain-specific words that cannot (well) be translated to English.
1 This is only a temporary fix. All representation with a fixed number of bits will eventually overflow. In fact, all representation with any memory constraint at all will overflow eventually. I leave it up to the reader to find out when a 64-bit integer will overflow
tl;dr
See correct Answer by Turing85 about 32-bit versus 64-bit integers.
Use only modern java.time classes, never Date/SimpleDateFormat.
Consider the crucial issue of time zone or offset-from-UTC.
Educate the publisher of your data about the importance of (a) including zone/offset info, and (b) using ISO 8601 standard formats.
Code:
LocalDateTime.parse(
"09.11.2019 01:30:17" ,
DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern( "dd.MM.uuuu HH:mm:ss" )
)
.atOffset(
ZoneOffset.UTC
)
.toInstant()
.toEpochMilli()
See this code run live at IdeOne.com.
1573263017000
Details
The correct Answer by Turing85 addresses your specific question as to why the invalid negative numbers. But you have other problems.
ISO 8601
Now my import format is: 09.11.2019 01:30:17
I suggest you educate the publisher of this data about the ISO 8601 standard defining formats to use when communicating date-time values as text.
Legacy date-time classes
You are use terrible date-time classes that were supplanted years ago by the modern java.time classes defined in JSR 310. Never use Date or SimpleDateFormat.
Moment
Apparently you want to get a count of milliseconds since the epoch reference of first moment of 1970 in UTC. But doing that requires a moment, a specific point on the timeline.
Your input does not meet this requirement. Your input is a date and a time-of-day but lacks the context of an offset-from-UTC or a time zone.
So, take your example of 09.11.2019 01:30:17. We cannot know if this is 1:30 in the afternoon of Tokyo Japan, or 1:30 PM in Paris France, or 1:30 in Toledo Ohio US — which are all very different moments, several hours apart on the timeline.
So we must first parse your input as a LocalDateTime. This class represent a date and time without any concept of offset or zone.
String input = "09.11.2019 01:30:17" ;
DateTimeFormatter f = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern( "dd.MM.uuuu HH:mm:ss" ) ;
LocalDateTime ldt = LocalDateTime.parse( input , f ) ;
Perhaps you know for certain the offset or zone intended by the publisher of this data. If so:
Suggest to the publisher of this data that they include the zone/offset info within their data.
Apply a ZoneOffset to get an OffsetDateTime, or a ZoneId to get a ZonedDateTime.
Perhaps you know for certain this input was intended for UTC, that is, an offset of zero hours-minutes-seconds.
OffsetDateTime odt = ldt.atOffset( ZoneOffset.UTC ) ;
To get a count of milliseconds since 1970-01-01T00:00Z convert to the basic building-block class Instant.
Instant instant = odt.toInstant() ;
Interrogate for a count of milliseconds since epoch.
long millisSinceEpoch = instant.toEpochMilli() ;
Understand that your original code ignored the crucial issue of time zone & offset-from-UTC. So your code implicitly applies the JVM's current default time zone. This means your results will vary at runtime, and means you likely have incorrect results too.
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
You may exchange java.time objects directly with your database. Use a JDBC driver compliant with JDBC 4.2 or later. No need for strings, no need for java.sql.* classes.
Where to obtain the java.time classes?
Java SE 8, Java SE 9, Java SE 10, Java SE 11, and later - Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes.
Java SE 6 and Java SE 7
Most of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
Android
Later versions of Android bundle implementations of the java.time classes.
For earlier Android (<26), the ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above). See How to use ThreeTenABP….
The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.
why you downcast the return value ofgetTime()?
just make you method return long instead of int
and replace this line
int gesamtzeit = (int)dt.getTime();
with
long gesamtzeit = dt.getTime();

Convert current date & time to equivalent GMT date & time

I used the below code where I've printed the modified GMT date in String & in Date format, it's giving me two different values.
Date initial = new Date();
DateFormat dateFormatter = DateFormat.getInstance();
dateFormatter.setTimeZone (TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
String gmtS = dateFormatter.format(initial);
Date gmt = dateFormatter.parse(gmtS);
System.out.println("Data type is Date = " + gmt);
System.out.println("Data type is String "+gmtS);
Output
gtm where value id of type Date = Thu Jul 03 23:15:00 EDT 2014
gmtS where value id of type String = 7/4/14 3:15 AM
But I want to see the value (7/4/14 3:15 AM) as a Date type.
Any help is really appreciated.
When you output a Date by calling toString() (which is what System.out.println("Data type is Date = " + gmt); does) you will get that Date according to the system time zone, because that is what Date.toString() returns.
Converts this Date object to a String of the form:
dow mon dd hh:mm:ss zzz yyyy
where:
...
zzz is the time zone (and may reflect daylight saving time). Standard time
zone abbreviations include those recognized by the method parse. If time
zone information is not available, then zzz is empty - that is, it
consists of no characters at all.
So, to get the output you expect use your dateFormatter to format it again.
String gmtS = dateFormatter.format(initial);
Date gmt = dateFormatter.parse(gmtS);
System.out.println("Data type is Date = " + dateFormatter.format(gmt));
tl;dr
Instant.now().toString()
2019-02-07T19:15:29.123456Z
Avoid legacy date-time classes
You are using date-time classes that are terribly troublesome, with many flaws in design.
First, you should know that java.util.Date represents a moment in UTC, always in UTC by definition. But its toString method tells a lie, dynamically applying the JVM’s current default time zone while generating the text representing the moment in the Date object.
java.time
The modern approach uses the java.time classes.
Instant
For a moment in UTC, use Instant. Like java.time.Date it represents a moment always in UTC (but with a finer resolution of nanoseconds versus milliseconds). Indeed, you can convert easily back-and-forth between Date and Instant by using new methods added to the old class.
Unlike toString on Date, the toString method on Instant always tells the truth. The method generates text in standard ISO 8601 format. The T in the middle separates the date portion from the time portion. The Z on the end is short for UTC and is pronounced “Zulu”.
Instant.now().toString(): 2019-01-23T12:34:56.123456789Z
OffsetDateTime
The Instant class is a basic building-block class in java.time, with limited functionality. If you want more flexible formatting, use the OffsetDateTime class with the offset set to UTC.
OffsetDateTime odt = instant.atOffset( ZoneOffset.UTC ) ;
Or skip the Instant class.
OffsetDateTime odt = OffsetDateTime.now( ZoneOffset.UTC ) ;
To generate text representing the value of the OffsetDateTime object, use the DateTimeFormatter class. Search Stack Overflow as this has been covered many many times already.
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.
You may exchange java.time objects directly with your database. Use a JDBC driver compliant with JDBC 4.2 or later. No need for strings, no need for java.sql.* classes.
Where to obtain the java.time classes?
Java SE 8, Java SE 9, Java SE 10, Java SE 11, and later - Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes.
Java SE 6 and Java SE 7
Most of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
Android
Later versions of Android bundle implementations of the java.time classes.
For earlier Android (<26), the ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above). See How to use ThreeTenABP….
The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.

Add interval to a datetime

I want to achieve a similar operation in java:
time = "2014-05-19 13:36:05"
interval = "60 (seconds)"
time - interval = "2014-05-19 13:35:05"
What's the best approach to express this in Java given the following constraints:
The datetime is a formated string.
The interval is an integer.
The calculated time should be also a datetime formatted string.
You should work with "Date" objects, which basically represent an instance in time (number of milliseconds since Unix epoch) when doing the subtraction. Once you have a "Date" Object you can use "getTime" method (http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/Date.html#getTime()) to get this milliseconds value, and subtract 60 seconds (make sure to work with milliseconds not seconds!), and create a new "Date" with that resulting value.
This is one approach. There are many, Joda library is also quite popular. It has a method to subtract milliseconds from its date representation, http://www.joda.org/joda-time/apidocs/org/joda/time/DateTime.html#minusSeconds(int).
Try using the joda-time library.
Here is the class to parse the date string.
Use:
dateTime.minusSeconds(int sec);
method to substract your interval.
java.time
The modern way is with java.time classes.
Do not conflate a point-in-time (a moment) with a span-of-time (a duration). Avoid representing a span-of-time using time-of-day notation as that creates ambiguity and confusion. Use standard ISO 8601 formatted strings to represent a duration: PnYnMnDTnHnMnS.
Do not conflate a date-time value (object) with a String representation. A date-time object can parse or generate a String but is distinct and separate from the String.
The java.time framework is rich with various date-time classes. Use these to represent your data as objects rather than mere numbers and strings.
The java.time classes use standard ISO 8601 formatted strings by default.
String input = "2014-05-19T13:36:05" ;
LocalDateTime ldt = LocalDateTime.parse( input );
Duration d = Duration.ofSeconds( 60 );
LocalDateTime later = ldt.plus( d );
ld.toString(): 2014-05-19T13:36:05
d.toString(): PT1M
later.toString(): 2014-05-19T13:37:05
See live code in IdeOne.com.
Note that LocalDateTime lacks any concept of time zone or offset-from-UTC. So this does not represent a moment on the timeline. Apply a zone or offset if you know one was intended. Already covered many times on Stack Overflow; search for OffsetDateTime and ZonedDateTime.
As for database and SQLite, there are many other Questions and Answers already handling this. Your JDBC 4.2 driver may handle conversion of java.time types directly. If not, store as string using standard ISO 8601 format.
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.
Where to obtain the java.time classes?
Java SE 8 and SE 9 and later
Built-in.
Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes.
Java SE 6 and SE 7
Much of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
Android
The ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above) for Android specifically.
See How to use….
The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.
You should work only with Date object instread of String. Format your date into string only when you whant to display it.
With a Date object you will be able to get the value in ms and do computation on it. You can also use Calendar to breakdown a date.
You should not work with String objects but Date instead. Only format date if and when you want to display it.
Date originalDate = new Date();
long diff = 60 * 1000; // milliseconds!
Date diffedDate = new Date(originalDate.getTime() - diff);
If you really want to do it the string way (which you should not), you can parse the date string like this:
String originalDateString = getDateTime(); // your current function
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
Date badlyDesignedOriginalDate = dateFormat.parse(originalDateString);
long diff = 60 * 1000; // milliseconds!
Date diffedDate = new Date(badlyDesignedOriginalDate.getTime() - diff);
But again, you should not do this.
You could use something like this:
long minute = 1000*60;
Date date1 = new Date(); //current date
Date date2 = new Date(date1.getTime() - minute); //new date, 1 minute older
//or another method
long minute = 1000*60;
Date date1 = new Date();
date1.setTime(date1.getTime() - minute);
Date works with milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT, so you can substract it like normal numbers.

Java time in GMT

I have a Grails application with the following code:
Date now = Calendar.getInstance().getTime() //Also tried new Date()
println "now: " + now
When I do this, I get now: Thu Aug 18 12:47:09 CDT 2011. I need the date to be in GMT, not local time because I need to store the GMT time in a database. I can use a simpleDateFormat object to print out the time in GMT, but I need to actually store it as GMT.
Question: How do I convert a Date object to a Date object using GMT?
This accentuates why Java sucks at time. The previous posts are all close, but we need to be very careful about getting the current time in GMT, and getting the current time in CDT and calling it GMT.
TimeZone reference = TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT");
Calendar myCal = Calendar.getInstance(reference);
This is the current time in GMT, with a timezone context of GMT.
To convert to a Date object which keeps the zone intact you'll need to call:
TimeZone.setDefault(reference);
This setting will last as long as your current JVM. Now calling get Time should produce the desired result.
myCal.getTime();
Well, if you really want time in GMT, you need to get it as GMT (#jpredham is right. Kudos to you! Editing my post to reflect this)
So do the following
//this option uses TimeZone
TimeZone gmtTimeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT");
TimeZone.setDefault(gmtTimeZone);
Calendar calendar = Calender.getInstance(gmtTimeZone);
Date myDate = calendar.getTime();
Try this:
println Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone('GMT')).format('HH:mm:ss')
Note that when you convert to a date, you lose the timezone information. When Java/Groovy formats your Date for printing, it automatically formats it for your local timezone. Don't worry, your date doesn't have a timezone associated with it. You can add the proper timezone back in when you display it like so:
Date now = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone('GMT')).time
def formatter = new java.text.SimpleDateFormat('HH:mm:ss')
formatter.timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone('GMT')
println formatter.format(now)
Internally a Calendar object stores the time in UTC (the modern name for GMT). getTimeInMillis() returns a UTC value, and is probably what you want to store.
You should try GregorianCalendar#setTimeZone(TimeZone timeZone).
Using System.currentTimeMillis() is not only much faster than using Calendar or Date, it always gives you the GMT time. If you want to display this time, you can use SimpleDateFormat, setting the time zone to what ever you want.
You are confusing date-time object with its string representation. All common date-time libraries in Java (java.util.Date, Joda-Time, java.time in Java 8) internally track a fractional number of seconds since the first moment of 1970 in UTC while ignoring leap seconds. So in all three libraries, the date-time is internally always in UTC/GMT.
So your question of how to convert a Date object to a Date object in GMT (UTC) makes no sense.
The two better libraries (Joda-Time and java.time) also track a time zone inside the date-time object. The notoriously troublesome java.util.Date has no time zone assigned yet confusingly applies the JVM's current default time zone when it's toString method is invoked.
For the record, Joda-Time makes short work of this.
DateTime nowUtc = DateTime.now( DateTimeZone.UTC );
Calling that object's toString method generates a string in ISO 8601 format in Zulu (UTC) time.
Search StackOverflow for "Joda" and "formatter" to find many examples of adjusting to other time zones.
tl;dr
Instant.now() // Capture current moment in UTC.
.toString() // Generate a String object in standard ISO 8601 format, YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SSSSSSSSSZ.
2018-02-16T23:28:01.101324Z
java.time
The modern approach uses java.time classes. Avoid the troublesome legacy date-time classes entirely.
The Instant class represents a moment on the timeline in UTC with a resolution of nanoseconds (up to nine (9) digits of a decimal fraction).
Instant instant = Instant.now() ; // Capture the current moment in UTC.
Generate a string in standard ISO 8601 format by calling toString.
String output = instant.toString() ;
If you need more flexibility than Instant provides, such as formatting while generating strings, use OffsetDateTime with the constant ZoneOffset.UTC.
OffsetDateTime odt = OffsetDateTime.now( ZoneOffset.UTC ) ; // Capture the current moment in UTC.
To generate strings in non-standard formats, use a DateTimeFormatter.
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.
Using a JDBC driver compliant with JDBC 4.2 or later, you may exchange java.time objects directly with your database. No need for strings nor java.sql.* classes.
Where to obtain the java.time classes?
Java SE 8, Java SE 9, and later
Built-in.
Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes.
Java SE 6 and Java SE 7
Much of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
Android
Later versions of Android bundle implementations of the java.time classes.
For earlier Android, the ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above). See How to use ThreeTenABP….
The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.

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