How to get System Timezone?

[Diksha Neel]

My system is configured to be in BST Timezone. But
spZone = java.util.TimeZone.getDefault(); gives me "GMT".

What is the command to get the system timezone i.e. BST?

Thanks in advance,
Diksha

[James Sabre]

On my Ubuntu804 system using JDK1.6.0_07, BST is not "British Standard Time" but "Bangladesh Time" .

Please run

    for (String id : TimeZone.getAvailableIDs())
        {
            if (id.matches("(?i).*?bst.*"))
            {
                System.out.println(id);
                System.out.println(TimeZone.getTimeZone(id).getDisplayName());
            }
        }

Also, when I run

        System.out.println(TimeZone.getDefault().getDisplayName());
        System.out.println(TimeZone.getDefault().getID());
 

I get
Greenwich Mean Time
GB

[James Sabre]

Originally posted by James Sabre:

Also, when I run

        System.out.println(TimeZone.getDefault().getDisplayName());
        System.out.println(TimeZone.getDefault().getID());
 

I get
Greenwich Mean Time
GB

It is interesting that when I run that code on Windows XP SP3 using 1.6.0_07 I get

Greenwich Mean Time
Europe/London

[Diksha Neel]

Hi James! Thanks for the reply but what I am looking for is printing the SYSTEM Timezone...whatever be it -BST/EST/IST etc.

So if my System in configured to be in say XYZ timezone, I wish my Java code to be able to print this XYZ timezone.

What is the command for this? I am using Java 1.4.2.

Thanks,
Diksha

[James Sabre]

Sorry but I don't think I can help. The only way I know of accessing the timezone is though the TimeZone class and if this does not give you the timezone ID in the format you want then nothing obvious and portable springs to mind.

[Maurizio Nagni]

Diksha, I guess that all you need is something like

TimeZone tz = Calendar.getInstance().getTimeZone();
System.out.println(tz.getDisplayName()); // (i.e. Moscow Standard Time)
System.out.println(tz.getID()); // (i.e. Europe/Moscow)

Regards

[Diksha Neel]

Hi Maurizio !

This also returns GMT...and not the actual system timezone.

Thanks,
Diksha

[Tanu Gulati]

Diksha, i am sorry if i understood it wrongly i tried the code given as
----------------
TimeZone tz = Calendar.getInstance().getTimeZone();
System.out.println(tz.getDisplayName());// (i.e. Moscow Standard Time)
System.out.println(tz.getID());
-----------------
and for me the output was
---------------------
India Standard Time
Asia/Calcutta
---------------------
then i went back and changed the time zone to Singapor and got the followng output
----------------------
Singapore Time
Asia/Singapore

----------------------
it is taking the time zone dynamically and shownig it so where is your problem?

one more thing i added following line of code

System.out.println(tz.getTimeZone(tz.getID()));//will this help ?


[ October 24, 2008: Message edited by: Tanu Gulati ]
[ October 24, 2008: Message edited by: Tanu Gulati ]

[Binod Suman]

I have also post similar type of Java example to How to get other TimeZone time by JAVA.

http://binodjava.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-get-other-timezone-time-by-java.html

Thanks,

Binod Suman

http://binodsuman.blogspot.com

[Campbell Ritchie]

By the way: It's not "British Standard Time" which we suffered from about 1969-1971. BST means British Summer Time. What in the States they call daylight saving time.

[jittu goud]

i had issues with this previously....

when i run the

 TimeZone tz = Calendar.getInstance().getTimeZone();  
  System.out.println(tz.getDisplayName()); // (i.e. Moscow Standard Time)  
 System.out.println(tz.getID());

its prints GMT for me...

output
Greenwich Mean Time
Europe/London
09:50:07

but if i use simpledateformat...it prints correct ,,,

Date date = new Date();
SimpleDateFormat sdf;
sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd MMM yyyy hh:mm:ss zzz");
System.out.println(sdf.format(date));

its prints the right time and time zone for me ...


output---Thu May 14 21:50:07 BST 2009

[jittu goud]

if you just want print the zone...then you might want to use

   1. Date date = new Date();  
   2. SimpleDateFormat sdf;  
   3. sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("zzz");  
   4. System.out.println(sdf.format(date));   

prints just BST

[Harsha Kasturi]

jittu goud wrote:i had issues with this previously....

when i run the

 TimeZone tz = Calendar.getInstance().getTimeZone();  
  System.out.println(tz.getDisplayName()); // (i.e. Moscow Standard Time)  
 System.out.println(tz.getID());

its prints GMT for me...

output
Greenwich Mean Time
Europe/London
09:50:07

but if i use simpledateformat...it prints correct ,,,

Date date = new Date();
SimpleDateFormat sdf;
sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd MMM yyyy hh:mm:ss zzz");
System.out.println(sdf.format(date));

its prints the right time and time zone for me ...


output---Thu May 14 21:50:07 BST 2009

Sorry for late reply.................

In order to get the short timezone like "BST" you could use the code below

TimeZone timeZone = Calendar.getInstance().getTimeZone();
		System.out.println(timeZone.getDisplayName(false, TimeZone.SHORT));

[diksha singh neel]

TimeZone timeZone = Calendar.getInstance().getTimeZone();
System.out.println(timeZone.getDisplayName(false, TimeZone.SHORT));
This has worked for me.

[Namikaze Minato]

Be careful, Java will detect the system timezone as Europe/Paris if /etc/localtime is a symlink to /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris, even if the contents of /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris is UTC data!

[Campbell Ritchie]

Welcome to the Ranch

[Namikaze Minato]

Thanks, I hope I didn't upset too many people by digging up such and old thread, but I had to share the solution I had been looking for such a long time...

[Campbell Ritchie]

No, it is quite all right to add new things to old threads. I see you have a simlink in /etc... That doesn't sound like a Windows® folder name. Is that problem specific to Linux, all Unix‑like systems, or particular distributions?

[Namikaze Minato]

I think this can happen in any Unix-like system. My specific case was CentOS, but the symlink may have come from some legacy program installing it...
/etc/localtime used to be a symlink in GNU/Linux a long time ago, and apparently Java still has code to handle /etc/localtime as a symlink
So from a sitation like this:
ls -l /etc/localtime -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2971 Mar 16 09:14 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/ParisIf you somehow ran this command:
cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC /etc/localtimeThis would overwrite /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris with UTC information, effectively changing the system timezone to UTC for all applications except JVM-based ones!

[Campbell Ritchie]

I got a similar output but with London because I am in UK. I presume I could change that by altering the system timezone. I am using Fedora25 at present, which is very similar to CentOS.

[Namikaze Minato]

Do you have a symlink in /etc/localtime ? If yes, does changing the system timezone (using the usual tools) change the symlink?

[Campbell Ritchie]

Don't know. Haven't tried, not until I next go across the Channel and need to change timezones.