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Asked: 2026-06-05T20:03:23+00:00

I need to get real world date and time in Java. I use: Date

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I need to get real world date and time in Java. I use:

Date date = new Date();

But I’m not sure that it is not just system time. I don’t need to be dependent on PC local date and time.

If it is so, then is there any way to abstract from it? I mean I need correct time and date. If today is the 1st of May, 2012 and user changed (maybe there was a system error) it to the 1st of December 2000, it shouldn’t affect business logic. So is there any alternative to achieve this?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Date only represents an instant in time, in milliseconds since the Unix epoch of January 1st 1970 UTC (modulo leap seconds). It has no concept of a time zone in its data. However, if you use the toString method it will always convert that UTC instant to a local date/time using the system time zone. That confuses a lot of users, making them think that Date contains a time zone – it’s just an illusion.

    Likewise Date doesn’t have any concept of a calendar system (Gregorian, Julian etc) or a “format”. Basically it’s just a long 🙂

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