Question

I am designing a service class to update data into the server periodically. Everything is working fine, but I have to send the current UTC date time in this format “MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss” to the server. I have tried a number of ways to achieve this, but they are not giving me the desired results.

Source code of the class:

public class MyAlarmService extends Service {

        String device_id;
    // GPSTracker class
       GPSTracker gps;

       String date_time;
@Override
public void onCreate() {
 // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    //Toast.makeText(this, "Service created", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

    //---get a Record---

    }

@Override
public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {
 // TODO Auto-generated method stub
 //Toast.makeText(this, "MyAlarmService.onBind()", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
 return null;
}

@Override
public void onDestroy() {
 // TODO Auto-generated method stub
 super.onDestroy();
 //Toast.makeText(this, "Service Destroyed.", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}

@Override
public void onStart(Intent intent, int startId) {
 // TODO Auto-generated method stub
 super.onStart(intent, startId);

 //Toast.makeText(this, "Service Started.", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();


//create class object

 gps = new GPSTracker(this);

     // check if GPS enabled        
     if(gps.canGetLocation())
     {
        double latitude = gps.getLatitude();
        double longitude = gps.getLongitude();
        String locationUsing = gps.getLocationUsing();

         final TelephonyManager tm =(TelephonyManager)getBaseContext().getSystemService(Context.TELEPHONY_SERVICE);

         String deviceid = tm.getDeviceId();


//       Calendar aGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
//       aGMTCalendar.getTimeInMillis(); //or getTimeInMillis()





         **Date d = new Date(year);
         CharSequence s = DateFormat.format("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss", d.getTime());**

        // get_date();






         **SimpleDateFormat dateFormatGmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
         dateFormatGmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
         java.util.Date date = null;
        System.out.println(dateFormatGmt.format(date));

        Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),""+date, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();**


        //Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),"Device ID: "+deviceid+ " Time: "+ s+"\nLat: " + latitude + "\nLong: " + longitude, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

        Log.w( "\nLat: " , ""+latitude);
        Log.w( "\nLong: " , ""+longitude);

        if(haveNetworkConnection())
        {


        //  sendPostRequest(deviceid,date_time,""+latitude,""+longitude);








//          ArrayList<NameValuePair> nameValuePairs = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>(3);
//          
//          nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("lat",""+latitude));
//          nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("lng",""+longitude));
//         
//          
//            try 
//            {
//              HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
//              //HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost("http://eatcastle.com/security_system_portal/api/getting_lat_lng.php");
//              HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost("http://google.com");
//              httppost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairs));
//              HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
//              String responseBody = EntityUtils.toString(response.getEntity());
//              
//              //Toast.makeText( getApplicationContext(),""+responseBody,Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
//          } 
//            catch (Throwable t) 
//            {
//              Log.d("Error",""+t);
//          } 

        }
        else
        {
            Toast.makeText( getApplicationContext(),"No Internet connection or Wifi available",Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        }
     }
     else
     {
        // GPS or Network is not enabled
        Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "No Network no GPS", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
     }
}

@Override
public boolean onUnbind(Intent intent) {
 // TODO Auto-generated method stub
 // Toast.makeText(this, "Service binded", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
 return super.onUnbind(intent);
}

//=======================================================================================================
//check packet data and wifi
//=======================================================================================================
private boolean haveNetworkConnection() 
{
    boolean haveConnectedWifi = false;
    boolean haveConnectedMobile = false;

    ConnectivityManager cm = (ConnectivityManager) getSystemService(Context.CONNECTIVITY_SERVICE);
    NetworkInfo[] netInfo = cm.getAllNetworkInfo();
    for (NetworkInfo ni : netInfo) 
    {
        if (ni.getTypeName().equalsIgnoreCase("WIFI"))
            if (ni.isConnected())
                haveConnectedWifi = true;
        if (ni.getTypeName().equalsIgnoreCase("MOBILE"))
            if (ni.isConnected())
                haveConnectedMobile = true;
    }
    return haveConnectedWifi || haveConnectedMobile;
}
//=======================================================================================================
    //checking packet data and wifi END
    //=======================================================================================================


void get_date()
{



}







//sending async post request
private void sendPostRequest(String deviceid, String date_time,String latitude, String longitude) {

    class SendPostReqAsyncTask extends AsyncTask<String, Void, String>{

        @Override
        protected String doInBackground(String... params) {

            String paramDeviceid = params[0];
            String paramDate_time = params[1];
            String paramLatitude = params[2];
            String paramLongitude = params[3];

            //System.out.println("*** doInBackground ** paramUsername " + paramUsername + " paramPassword :" + paramPassword);

            HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();

            // In a POST request, we don't pass the values in the URL.
            //Therefore we use only the web page URL as the parameter of the HttpPost argument
            HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost("http://google.com");

            // Because we are not passing values over the URL, we should have a mechanism to pass the values that can be
            //uniquely separate by the other end.
            //To achieve that we use BasicNameValuePair             
            //Things we need to pass with the POST request
            BasicNameValuePair DeviceidBasicNameValuePair = new BasicNameValuePair("stringLoginUser", paramDeviceid);
            BasicNameValuePair Date_timeBasicNameValuePAir = new BasicNameValuePair("stringLoginPwd", paramDate_time);
            BasicNameValuePair LatitudeBasicNameValuePAir = new BasicNameValuePair("stringLoginPwd", paramLatitude);
            BasicNameValuePair LongitudeBasicNameValuePAir = new BasicNameValuePair("stringLoginPwd", paramLongitude);

            // We add the content that we want to pass with the POST request to as name-value pairs
            //Now we put those sending details to an ArrayList with type safe of NameValuePair
            List<NameValuePair> nameValuePairList = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
            nameValuePairList.add(DeviceidBasicNameValuePair);
            nameValuePairList.add(Date_timeBasicNameValuePAir);
            nameValuePairList.add(LatitudeBasicNameValuePAir);
            nameValuePairList.add(LongitudeBasicNameValuePAir);

            try {
                // UrlEncodedFormEntity is an entity composed of a list of url-encoded pairs. 
                //This is typically useful while sending an HTTP POST request. 
                UrlEncodedFormEntity urlEncodedFormEntity = new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairList);

                // setEntity() hands the entity (here it is urlEncodedFormEntity) to the request.
                httpPost.setEntity(urlEncodedFormEntity);

                try {
                    // HttpResponse is an interface just like HttpPost.
                    //Therefore we can't initialize them
                    HttpResponse httpResponse = httpClient.execute(httpPost);



                    // According to the JAVA API, InputStream constructor do nothing. 
                    //So we can't initialize InputStream although it is not an interface
                    InputStream inputStream = httpResponse.getEntity().getContent();

                    InputStreamReader inputStreamReader = new InputStreamReader(inputStream);

                    BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(inputStreamReader);

                    StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();

                    String bufferedStrChunk = null;

                    while((bufferedStrChunk = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null){
                        stringBuilder.append(bufferedStrChunk);
                    }

                    return stringBuilder.toString();

                } catch (ClientProtocolException cpe) {
                    System.out.println("First Exception caz of HttpResponese :" + cpe);
                    cpe.printStackTrace();
                } catch (IOException ioe) {
                    System.out.println("Second Exception caz of HttpResponse :" + ioe);
                    ioe.printStackTrace();
                }

            } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException uee) {
                System.out.println("An Exception given because of UrlEncodedFormEntity argument :" + uee);
                uee.printStackTrace();
            }

            return null;
        }

        @Override
        protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
            super.onPostExecute(result);

            Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), result, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();






        }           
    }

    SendPostReqAsyncTask sendPostReqAsyncTask = new SendPostReqAsyncTask();
    sendPostReqAsyncTask.execute(deviceid, date_time,latitude,longitude);       
}




}  

How should I pick up the current utc date time in the above mentioned format and send it to the server?

P.S.: Sometimes while implementing different methods, I also found an IDE error saying new Date() constructor is not defined.

Answer 1

Why are you assigning null to your date value..?

Check this out:

Date formattedDate = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis());

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy MM dd, hh:mm a", Locale.US);

String time = sdf.format(formattedDate);