Getting current date and timestamp for timezone

Question

I am getting the current date and timestamp using
Date d = new Date();
On the platform I'm using it is returning it in GMT time.
I want to convert this into Eastern Time Zone for United Status.

Answer 1

java.util.Date objects contain a count of milliseconds since the "epoch", which happens to be midnight, Jan 1 1970 GMT. However, they aren't intrinsically "in" any timezone.
If you simply call Date.toString(), you'll get the date formatted for the current locale, including timezone.
If you want a different format, you can use the DateFormat or SimpleDateFormat classes (recommended), or use Calendar to pull the various date components out. You have to physically set the timezone for each of these.
To get a list of timezones supported by your machine, you can run this program:
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.TimeZone;
public class TZDump
    public static void main(String[] argv)
    throws Exception
        String[] zones = TimeZone.getAvailableIDs();
        Arrays.sort(zones);
        for (int ii = 0 ; ii < zones.length ; ii++)
            System.out.println(zones[ii]);
}And, here's a program that lets you compare the same date in different timezones:
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.TimeZone;
public class TZDemo
    public static void main(String[] argv)
    throws Exception
        SimpleDateFormat fmt = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yy HH:mm:ss");
        Date now = new Date();
        System.out.println("Default TZ = " + fmt.format(now));
        String[] zones = new String[] { "EST", "EST5EDT", "PST"};
        for (int ii = 0 ; ii < zones.length ; ii++)
            fmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone(zones[ii]));
            System.out.println("EST        = " + fmt.format(now));
}