Oracle Timestamp Issue

Question

I'm using a Oracle 9.2 database and Oracle 9 JDBC drivers.
The server has its time zone set to GMT and I'm testing from a client in EST.
It seems like the Timestamp are not being returned correctly.
What I think is happening here is mismatch between the time zone of Oracle server and the client that is not being accounted for when the driver is creating timestamps.
If I add the row using sysdate at 8 AM EST on a server running on GMT, then retrieve the timestamp with JDBC using a Java default time zone of EST, I get a timestamp that matches 1 PM EST or 6 PM GMT.
If I retrieve it with JDBC after setting my Java default time zone to GMT (so it matches the server), then I get a timestamp that matches 8 AM EST or 1 PM GMT which is correct.
My hunch is that the driver is just doing a new Calendar and setting the hour directly from the server. So if the server passes 1 PM (or hour 13 in 24 hour day), it just sets it using the default time zone whatever it is. As long as the client default time zone and the Oracle server time zone are the same, everything works fine. If they are different, there will be a discrepancy of the number hours offset between the time zone of the client and the time zone of the server.
Does any one else have any ideas?

Answer 1

First, I am not setting the timestamp without
conversion (#2). The driver is setting the timestamp
and you are suggesting exactly what I think the
driver is doing.
As I understand it, timestamp has NO timezone. It is,
in fact, a long number of milliseconds since Jan 1,
1970 GMT.
Timezones come into play when we go to render the
milliseconds in a way that makes sense ot humans.
In other words, the timestamp for 8 AM EST and 1 PM
GMT are the same. If you don't believe it, create two
Calendar objects, one with EST timezone and the other
with GMT. Set the GMT one to 1 PM and the other one
to 8 AM (same day, year, minutes, and milliseconds).
Then display the time as a long. It is the same value.Correct.