Problem in getting the Date object based on the TimeZone

Question

Hi,
I need to create a Date object that holds the time of the specified TimeZone.
I am using TimeZone and Calendar object for that, but when I call the Calendar object's getTime() method, it returns
a Date object that holds the local time.
Can somebody let me know what why?
Here is what I uses in my code.
TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone("IST");
Calendar cal = new GregorianCalendar(tz);
System.out.println("Date of "IST" TimeZone = " + cal.getTime());
Instead of cal.getTime, if I do the following I am getting the values correctly.
int month = cal.get(Calendar.MONTH); // 0..11
int day = cal.get(Calendar.DATE); // 0..11
int hour12 = cal.get(Calendar.HOUR); // 0..11
int minutes = cal.get(Calendar.MINUTE); // 0..59
Can somebody let me know why I am not able to assign the Date of the TimeZone specified.
Is there anything wrong with the code?
Seb

Answer 1

Is there anything wrong with the code?No, only with your understanding of the Date class. From the API:
The class Date represents a specific instant in time, with millisecond precision.
The different time displayed for different TimeZones around the world are just that: a display format for the same instant in time.
To display the "instant in time" in a different TimeZone, use DateFormat. Here's a small sample:TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone ("GMT");
Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance (tz);
System.out.println(c.getTime ()); // prints Tue Mar 18 02:56:53 IST 2008
DateFormat dtf = DateFormat.getTimeInstance ();
dtf.setTimeZone (tz);
System.out.println(dtf.format (c.getTime ())); // prints 9:26:53 PMIt's no different from formatting the same number in various ways: 10 decimal == 0xA hexadecimal == 012 octal == 1010 binary. Same value, different representation. Same intant in time, different local time for each zone.
Savvy?
cheers, db