GMT and Date

Question

I am reading a date from an XML file. The date is specified in GMT. I want to create a Date object in GMT based on this value, and not on the local time zone. How do I do this easily? I know I can find out what time zone I'm in and add some value (or subtract) to get GMT, but I can't believe there is not some simple way to create a Date object in GMT.

Answer 1

There is:
// Get Locale
Locale locale = Locale.getDefault();
// Create timeZone object
TimeZone tzTimeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT");
//Create Calendar object
Calendar calCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(tzTimeZone);
// Create DateObject
DateFormat dateFormat = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.DEFAULT, locale);
dateFormat.setTimeZone(tzTimeZone);
// Get current time
Time tmLastLogin = rs.getTime("LastSignOn");//this was a time object read from a database but you can create it here
// Set time in our calendar object
calCalendar.setTime(tmLastLogin);
calCalendar.set(Calendar.YEAR,dtLastLogin.getYear()+1900);
calCalendar.set(Calendar.MONTH,dtLastLogin.getMonth());
calCalendar.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH,dtLastLogin.getDate());
calCalendar.setTimeZone(tzTimeZone);
// Get our Date Object
java.util.Date dt = calCalendar.getTime();
// Get our GMT String representation
String dtString = dt.toGMTString();
This code is used in a servlet that displays to the user the last time he or she logged into the system in GMT time.