Date format in BPEL process

Question

Hi,
I have a requirement where in the webservice I invoke takes in date in the format 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ'. To do this I am taking the current date into say variable_1 ( xp20:current-dateTime() ). which gives me date as _2009-04-02T08:49:04-08:00_ but the actual time is _2009-04-02T09:49:04-08:00_ . This is because of the daylight saving I guess. So for this to give me correct date and time I have embedded java code which takes in the dateTime and gives me the XSD date. The code goes like this
String xsdDateString = (String)getVariableData("Variable_3");
addAuditTrailEntry("Output: " + xsdDateString);
try{
if (xsdDateString != null || xsdDateString.trim().length() != 0) {
               javax.xml.datatype.DatatypeFactory factory=null;
               try {
          factory = javax.xml.datatype.DatatypeFactory.newInstance();
          } catch (javax.xml.datatype.DatatypeConfigurationException e) {
          addAuditTrailEntry("exception: " + e);
          javax.xml.datatype.XMLGregorianCalendar xmlCal = factory.newXMLGregorianCalendar(xsdDateString);
          java.util.GregorianCalendar cal = xmlCal.toGregorianCalendar();
          java.util.Date date = cal.getTime();
          java.text.DateFormat FORMAT = new java.text.SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss");
               addAuditTrailEntry("date: " + date);
setVariableData("Variable_3",FORMAT.format(date)+"Z");
}catch(Exception e){
addAuditTrailEntry("exception: " + e);
This when tested thru java works perfectly correct. I mean when I give the date string as _2009-04-02T08:49:04-08:00_ returns me back _2009-04-02T09:49:04-08:00_. But the same code embedded into BPEL process does not return me the expetced date .It still gives me _2009-04-02T08:49:04-08:00_.
Did some one come across this . Or can some one help me with this.
Edited by: user3622266 on Apr 2, 2009 10:04 AM

Answer 1

All,
Update on this issue! I had the same issue and the timestamp was logged 1 hr ahead of time in the database tables while using the xp20:current-dateTime() function. However, when I resorted to ora:getCurrentDateTime() BPEL XPath extension function, this issue was resolved and the actual timestamp was logged as expected. I guess, instead of going in for a Java Embedding activity to extract the exact timestamp, we can use the BPEL extension functions to resolve this issue. Also the only difference I could find between these two functions is the timezone value that comes additionally with the xp20:current-dateTime() version.
Note: I am using SOA Suite 10.1.3.3 which comes bundled with default JDK version 1.5.0_06.
Thanks!