Converting to UTC time format

Question

Hi ,
      I would like to convert the time retrieved from the database to UTC format. Do you have any idea how this possible in MII?
Is there any inbuilt method in MII for doing this
Thanks
Shaji

Answer 1

Hello Shaji,
in my opinion a real time zone conversion cannot be achieved by using the MII functions and standard actions. I wrote my own MII action. It looks something like this:
private static final String DATE_FORMAT = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss";
@Action(name = "TimeZoneConverter")
@Outputs(names = { "OutputDate" }, types = { VariantDataTypes.STRING })
public boolean run(IActionInstance action,
  @Input(name = "InputTimeZone") String inputTimeZone,
  @Input(name = "InputDate") String inputDate,
  @Input(name = "OutputTimeZone") String outputTimeZone)
  throws InvalidVariableException, DataConversionException {
  SimpleDateFormat inputDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(DATE_FORMAT);
  inputDateFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone(inputTimeZone));
  Date date = inputDateFormat.parse(inputDate);
  SimpleDateFormat outputDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(DATE_FORMAT);
  outputDateFormat.setLenient(true);
  outputDateFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone(outputTimeZone));
  action.setActionResult("OutputDate", outputDateFormat.format(date));
  return true;
Regards,
Martin