TimeZone class

TimeZone represents a time zone offset, and daylight savings.

You get a TimeZone using getDefault(). getDefault() creates a TimeZone based on the time zone where the program is running. You can also get a TimeZone using getTimeZone along with a time zone ID.

You can get a U.S. Pacific Time TimeZone object with:

TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone("America/Los_Angeles");

You can use the getAvailableIDs method to iterate through all the supported time zone IDs. You can then choose a supported ID to get a TimeZone.

If the time zone you want is not represented by one of the supported IDs, then a custom time zone ID can be specified to produce a TimeZone.

The syntax of a custom time zone ID is:

     CustomID:
             GMT Sign Hours : Minutes
             GMT Sign Hours Minutes
             GMT Sign Hours
     Sign: one of
             + -
     Hours:
             Digit
             Digit Digit
     Minutes:
             Digit Digit
     Digit: one of
             0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Hours must be between 0 to 23 and

Minutes must be between 00 to 59.

For example, "GMT+10" and "GMT+0010" mean ten hours and ten minutes ahead of GMT, respectively.

The format is locale independent and digits must be taken from the Basic Latin block of the Unicode standard.

No daylight saving time transition schedule can be specified with a custom time zone ID.

If the specified string doesn't match the syntax, "GMT" is used.

When creating a TimeZone, the specified custom time zone ID is normalized in the following syntax:

     NormalizedCustomID:
             GMT Sign TwoDigitHours : Minutes
     Sign: one of
             + -
     TwoDigitHours:
             Digit Digit
     Minutes:
             Digit Digit
     Digit: one of
             0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

For example, TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-8").getID() returns "GMT-08:00".