[java] Date in to UTC format Java

I have a string like this 2013-10-22T01:37:56. I Need to change this string into UTC Date format like this MM/dd/yyyy KK:mm:ss a. I have tried some code but it is not returning the UTC datetime.

My code is

        String[] time = itsAlarmDttm.split("T");
        String aFormatDate = time[0]+ " "+time[1];
        String aRevisedDate = null;
        try {
            final SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
            final Date dateObj = sdf.parse(aFormatDate);
            aRevisedDate = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy KK:mm:ss a").format(dateObj);
            System.out.println(aRevisedDate);
        } catch (ParseException e) {
            itsLogger.error("Error occured in Parsing the Data Time Object:  " +e.getMessage());
        } catch (Exception e) {
            itsLogger.error("Error occured in Data Time Objecct:  " +e.getMessage());
        }

I am getting the output is MM/dd/yyyy KK:mm:ss a format. But Not UTC time format. How to solve this issue?

java.time

It’s about time someone provides the modern answer. The modern solution uses java.time, the modern Java date and time API. The classes SimpleDateFormat and Date used in the question and in a couple of the other answers are poorly designed and long outdated, the former in particular notoriously troublesome. TimeZone is poorly designed to. I recommend you avoid those.

    ZoneId utc = ZoneId.of("Etc/UTC");
    DateTimeFormatter targetFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern(
            "MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss a zzz", Locale.ENGLISH);

    String itsAlarmDttm = "2013-10-22T01:37:56";
    ZonedDateTime utcDateTime = LocalDateTime.parse(itsAlarmDttm)
            .atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault())
            .withZoneSameInstant(utc);
    String formatterUtcDateTime = utcDateTime.format(targetFormatter);
    System.out.println(formatterUtcDateTime);

When running in my time zone, Europe/Copenhagen, the output is:

10/21/2013 11:37:56 PM UTC

I have assumed that the string you got was in the default time zone of your JVM, a fragile assumption since that default setting can be changed at any time from another part of your program or another programming running in the same JVM. If you can, instead specify time zone explicitly, for example ZoneId.of("Europe/Podgorica") or ZoneId.of("Asia/Kolkata").

I am exploiting the fact that you string is in ISO 8601 format, the format the the modern classes parse as their default, that is, without any explicit formatter.

I am using a ZonedDateTime for the result date-time because it allows us to format it with UTC in the formatted string to eliminate any and all doubt. For other purposes one would typically have wanted an OffsetDateTime or an Instant instead.

Links

• Oracle tutorial: Date Time explaining how to use java.time.
• Wikipedia article: ISO 8601

Try this... Worked for me and printed 10/22/2013 01:37:56 AM Ofcourse this is your code only with little modifications.

final SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss");
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));   // This line converts the given date into UTC time zone
final java.util.Date dateObj = sdf.parse("2013-10-22T01:37:56");

aRevisedDate = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy KK:mm:ss a").format(dateObj);
System.out.println(aRevisedDate);

What Time Zones?

No where in your question do you mention time zone. What time zone is implied that input string? What time zone do you want for your output? And, UTC is a time zone (or lack thereof depending on your mindset) not a string format.

ISO 8601

Your input string is in ISO 8601 format, except that it lacks an offset from UTC.

Joda-Time

Here is some example code in Joda-Time 2.3 to show you how to handle time zones. Joda-Time has built-in default formatters for parsing and generating String representations of date-time values.

String input = "2013-10-22T01:37:56";
DateTime dateTimeUtc = new DateTime( input, DateTimeZone.UTC );
DateTime dateTimeMontréal = dateTimeUtc.withZone( DateTimeZone.forID( "America/Montreal" );
String output = dateTimeMontréal.toString();

As for generating string representations in other formats, search StackOverflow for "Joda format".

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat( "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" );
// or SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat( "MM/dd/yyyy KK:mm:ss a Z" );
sdf.setTimeZone( TimeZone.getTimeZone( "UTC" ) );
System.out.println( sdf.format( new Date() ) );