Question

The following works (shows UTC time)

TimeZone.setDefault(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
System.out.println(new Date());

but this doesn’t (shows local time)

    Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
    System.out.println(cal.getTime());
    System.out.println(new Date());

Is there something simple, that I’m missing?

Answer 1

You’re printing out the result of Date.toString(), which always uses the default time zone.

I suggest you use DateFormat instead, which is better suited for formatting dates. Date.toString is really only suitable for debugging – it provides no control over the format.

Alternatively, use Joda Time for all your date and time operations – it’s a much better API to start with 🙂