Question

I have the below code:

DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("M/d/yy h:mm a z");
df.setLenient(false);
System.out.println(df.parse("6/29/2012 5:15 PM IST"));

Assuming I now set my PC’s timezone to Pacific Time (UTC-7 for PDT), this prints

Fri Jun 29 08:15:00 PDT 2012

Isn’t PDT 12.5 hours behind IST (Indian Standard Time)? This problem does not occur for any other timezone – I tried UTC, PKT, MMT etc instead of IST in the date string. Are there two ISTs in Java by any chance?

P.S: The date string in the actual code comes from an external source, so I cannot use GMT offset or any other timezone format.

Answer 1

Sorry, I have to write an answer for this, but try this code:

public class Test {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
        DF df = new DF("M/d/yy h:mm a z");
        String [][] zs = df.getDateFormatSymbols().getZoneStrings();
        for( String [] z : zs ) {
            System.out.println( Arrays.toString( z ) );
        }
    }

    private static class DF extends SimpleDateFormat {
        @Override
        public DateFormatSymbols getDateFormatSymbols() {
            return super.getDateFormatSymbols();
        }

        public DF(String pattern) {
            super(pattern);
        }
    }

}

You’ll find that IST appears several times in the list and the first one is indeed Israel Standard Time.