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Getting wrong date '01:00:00' when using SimpleDateFormat.parse() [duplicate]

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When I create a new Date object, it is initialized to the current time but in the local timezone. How can I get the current date and time in GMT?

tl;dr
Instant.now() // Capture the current moment in UTC.
Generate a String to represent that value:
Instant.now().toString()
2016-09-13T23:30:52.123Z
Details
As the correct answer by Jon Skeet stated, a java.util.Date object has no time zone†. But its toString implementation applies the JVM’s default time zone when generating the String representation of that date-time value. Confusingly to the naïve programmer, a Date seems to have a time zone but does not.
The java.util.Date, j.u.Calendar, and java.text.SimpleDateFormat classes bundled with Java are notoriously troublesome. Avoid them. Instead, use either of these competent date-time libraries:
java.time.* package in Java 8
Joda-Time
java.time (Java 8)
Java 8 brings an excellent new java.time.* package to supplant the old java.util.Date/Calendar classes.
Getting current time in UTC/GMT is a simple one-liner…
Instant instant = Instant.now();
That Instant class is the basic building block in java.time, representing a moment on the timeline in UTC with a resolution of nanoseconds.
In Java 8, the current moment is captured with only up to milliseconds resolution. Java 9 brings a fresh implementation of Clock captures the current moment in up to the full nanosecond capability of this class, depending on the ability of your host computer’s clock hardware.
It’s toString method generates a String representation of its value using one specific ISO 8601 format. That format outputs zero, three, six or nine digits digits (milliseconds, microseconds, or nanoseconds) as necessary to represent the fraction-of-second.
If you want more flexible formatting, or other additional features, then apply an offset-from-UTC of zero, for UTC itself (ZoneOffset.UTC constant) to get a OffsetDateTime.
OffsetDateTime now = OffsetDateTime.now( ZoneOffset.UTC );
Dump to console…
System.out.println( "now.toString(): " + now );
When run…
now.toString(): 2014-01-21T23:42:03.522Z
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
You may exchange java.time objects directly with your database. Use a JDBC driver compliant with JDBC 4.2 or later. No need for strings, no need for java.sql.* classes.
Where to obtain the java.time classes?
Java SE 8, Java SE 9, Java SE 10, Java SE 11, and later - Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes.
Java SE 6 and Java SE 7
Most of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
Android
Later versions of Android bundle implementations of the java.time classes.
For earlier Android (<26), the ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above). See How to use ThreeTenABP….
The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.
Joda-Time
UPDATE: The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
Using the Joda-Time 3rd-party open-source free-of-cost library, you can get the current date-time in just one line of code.
Joda-Time inspired the new java.time.* classes in Java 8, but has a different architecture. You may use Joda-Time in older versions of Java. Joda-Time continues to work in Java 8 and continues to be actively maintained (as of 2014). However, the Joda-Time team does advise migration to java.time.
System.out.println( "UTC/GMT date-time in ISO 8601 format: " + new org.joda.time.DateTime( org.joda.time.DateTimeZone.UTC ) );
More detailed example code (Joda-Time 2.3)…
org.joda.time.DateTime now = new org.joda.time.DateTime(); // Default time zone.
org.joda.time.DateTime zulu = now.toDateTime( org.joda.time.DateTimeZone.UTC );
Dump to console…
System.out.println( "Local time in ISO 8601 format: " + now );
System.out.println( "Same moment in UTC (Zulu): " + zulu );
When run…
Local time in ISO 8601 format: 2014-01-21T15:34:29.933-08:00
Same moment in UTC (Zulu): 2014-01-21T23:34:29.933Z
For more example code doing time zone work, see my answer to a similar question.
Time Zone
I recommend you always specify a time zone rather than relying implicitly on the JVM’s current default time zone (which can change at any moment!). Such reliance seems to be a common cause of confusion and bugs in date-time work.
When calling now() pass the desired/expected time zone to be assigned. Use the DateTimeZone class.
DateTimeZone zoneMontréal = DateTimeZone.forID( "America/Montreal" );
DateTime now = DateTime.now( zoneMontréal );
That class holds a constant for UTC time zone.
DateTime now = DateTime.now( DateTimeZone.UTC );
If you truly want to use the JVM’s current default time zone, make an explicit call so your code is self-documenting.
DateTimeZone zoneDefault = DateTimeZone.getDefault();
ISO 8601
Read about ISO 8601 formats. Both java.time and Joda-Time use that standard’s sensible formats as their defaults for both parsing and generating strings.
† Actually, java.util.Date does have a time zone, buried deep under layers of source code. For most practical purposes, that time zone is ignored. So, as shorthand, we say java.util.Date has no time zone. Furthermore, that buried time zone is not the one used by Date’s toString method; that method uses the JVM’s current default time zone. All the more reason to avoid this confusing class and stick with Joda-Time and java.time.

java.util.Date has no specific time zone, although its value is most commonly thought of in relation to UTC. What makes you think it's in local time?
To be precise: the value within a java.util.Date is the number of milliseconds since the Unix epoch, which occurred at midnight January 1st 1970, UTC. The same epoch could also be described in other time zones, but the traditional description is in terms of UTC. As it's a number of milliseconds since a fixed epoch, the value within java.util.Date is the same around the world at any particular instant, regardless of local time zone.
I suspect the problem is that you're displaying it via an instance of Calendar which uses the local timezone, or possibly using Date.toString() which also uses the local timezone, or a SimpleDateFormat instance, which, by default, also uses local timezone.
If this isn't the problem, please post some sample code.
I would, however, recommend that you use Joda-Time anyway, which offers a much clearer API.

SimpleDateFormat dateFormatGmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss");
dateFormatGmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
//Local time zone
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatLocal = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss");
//Time in GMT
return dateFormatLocal.parse( dateFormatGmt.format(new Date()) );

This definitely returns UTC time: as String and Date objects !
static final String DATE_FORMAT = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss";
public static Date getUTCdatetimeAsDate() {
// note: doesn't check for null
return stringDateToDate(getUTCdatetimeAsString());
}
public static String getUTCdatetimeAsString() {
final SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(DATE_FORMAT);
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
final String utcTime = sdf.format(new Date());
return utcTime;
}
public static Date stringDateToDate(String StrDate) {
Date dateToReturn = null;
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(DATEFORMAT);
try {
dateToReturn = (Date)dateFormat.parse(StrDate);
}
catch (ParseException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return dateToReturn;
}

Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
System.out.println("current: "+c.getTime());
TimeZone z = c.getTimeZone();
int offset = z.getRawOffset();
if(z.inDaylightTime(new Date())){
offset = offset + z.getDSTSavings();
}
int offsetHrs = offset / 1000 / 60 / 60;
int offsetMins = offset / 1000 / 60 % 60;
System.out.println("offset: " + offsetHrs);
System.out.println("offset: " + offsetMins);
c.add(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, (-offsetHrs));
c.add(Calendar.MINUTE, (-offsetMins));
System.out.println("GMT Time: "+c.getTime());

Actually not time, but it's representation could be changed.
SimpleDateFormat f = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss");
f.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
System.out.println(f.format(new Date()));
Time is the same in any point of the Earth, but our perception of time could be different depending on location.

This works for getting UTC milliseconds in Android.
Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
int utcOffset = c.get(Calendar.ZONE_OFFSET) + c.get(Calendar.DST_OFFSET);
Long utcMilliseconds = c.getTimeInMillis() + utcOffset;

Calendar aGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
Then all operations performed using the aGMTCalendar object will be done with the GMT time zone and will not have the daylight savings time or fixed offsets applied
Wrong!
Calendar aGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
aGMTCalendar.getTime(); //or getTimeInMillis()
and
Calendar aNotGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-2"));aNotGMTCalendar.getTime();
will return the same time. Idem for
new Date(); //it's not GMT.

This code prints the current time UTC.
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.TimeZone;
public class Test
{
public static void main(final String[] args) throws ParseException
{
final SimpleDateFormat f = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss z");
f.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
System.out.println(f.format(new Date()));
}
}
Result
2013-10-26 14:37:48 UTC

Here is what seems to be incorrect in Jon Skeet's answer. He said:
java.util.Date is always in UTC. What makes you think it's in local
time? I suspect the problem is that you're displaying it via an
instance of Calendar which uses the local timezone, or possibly using
Date.toString() which also uses the local timezone.
However, the code:
System.out.println(new java.util.Date().getHours() + " hours");
gives the local hours, not GMT (UTC hours), using no Calendar and no SimpleDateFormat at all.
That is why is seems something is incorrect.
Putting together the responses, the code:
System.out.println(Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"))
.get(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY) + " Hours");
shows the GMT hours instead of the local hours -- note that getTime.getHours() is missing because that would create a Date() object, which theoretically stores the date in GMT, but gives back the hours in the local time zone.

If you want a Date object with fields adjusted for UTC you can do it like this with Joda Time:
import org.joda.time.DateTimeZone;
import java.util.Date;
...
Date local = new Date();
System.out.println("Local: " + local);
DateTimeZone zone = DateTimeZone.getDefault();
long utc = zone.convertLocalToUTC(local.getTime(), false);
System.out.println("UTC: " + new Date(utc));

You can use:
Calendar aGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
Then all operations performed using the aGMTCalendar object will be done with the GMT time zone and will not have the daylight savings time or fixed offsets applied. I think the previous poster is correct that the Date() object always returns a GMT it's not until you go to do something with the date object that it gets converted to the local time zone.

SimpleDateFormat dateFormatGmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
dateFormatGmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
System.out.println(dateFormatGmt.format(date));

Here is my implementation of toUTC:
public static Date toUTC(Date date){
long datems = date.getTime();
long timezoneoffset = TimeZone.getDefault().getOffset(datems);
datems -= timezoneoffset;
return new Date(datems);
}
There's probably several ways to improve it, but it works for me.

You can directly use this
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatGmt = new SimpleDateFormat("dd:MM:yyyy HH:mm:ss");
dateFormatGmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
System.out.println(dateFormatGmt.format(new Date())+"");

Here an other suggestion to get a GMT Timestamp object:
import java.sql.Timestamp;
import java.util.Calendar;
...
private static Timestamp getGMT() {
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
return new Timestamp(cal.getTimeInMillis()
-cal.get(Calendar.ZONE_OFFSET)
-cal.get(Calendar.DST_OFFSET));
}

Here is another way to get GMT time in String format
String DATE_FORMAT = "EEE, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss z" ;
final SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(DATE_FORMAT);
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
String dateTimeString = sdf.format(new Date());

With:
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
Then cal have the current date and time.
You also could get the current Date and Time for timezone with:
Calendar cal2 = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-2"));
You could ask cal.get(Calendar.DATE); or other Calendar constant about others details.
Date and Timestamp are deprecated in Java. Calendar class it isn't.

Sample code to render system time in a specific time zone and a specific format.
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.TimeZone;
public class TimZoneTest {
public static void main (String[] args){
//<GMT><+/-><hour>:<minutes>
// Any screw up in this format, timezone defaults to GMT QUIETLY. So test your format a few times.
System.out.println(my_time_in("GMT-5:00", "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss") );
System.out.println(my_time_in("GMT+5:30", "'at' HH:mm a z 'on' MM/dd/yyyy"));
System.out.println("---------------------------------------------");
// Alternate format
System.out.println(my_time_in("America/Los_Angeles", "'at' HH:mm a z 'on' MM/dd/yyyy") );
System.out.println(my_time_in("America/Buenos_Aires", "'at' HH:mm a z 'on' MM/dd/yyyy") );
}
public static String my_time_in(String target_time_zone, String format){
TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone(target_time_zone);
Date date = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
SimpleDateFormat date_format_gmt = new SimpleDateFormat(format);
date_format_gmt.setTimeZone(tz);
return date_format_gmt.format(date);
}
}
Output
10/08/2011 21:07:21
at 07:37 AM GMT+05:30 on 10/09/2011
at 19:07 PM PDT on 10/08/2011
at 23:07 PM ART on 10/08/2011

Just to make this simpler, to create a Date in UTC you can use Calendar :
Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
Which will construct a new instance for Calendar using the "UTC" TimeZone.
If you need a Date object from that calendar you could just use getTime().

Converting Current DateTime in UTC:
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'");
DateTimeZone dateTimeZone = DateTimeZone.getDefault(); //Default Time Zone
DateTime currDateTime = new DateTime(); //Current DateTime
long utcTime = dateTimeZone.convertLocalToUTC(currDateTime .getMillis(), false);
String currTime = formatter.print(utcTime); //UTC time converted to string from long in format of formatter
currDateTime = formatter.parseDateTime(currTime); //Converted to DateTime in UTC

public static void main(String args[]){
LocalDate date=LocalDate.now();
System.out.println("Current date = "+date);
}

This worked for me, returns the timestamp in GMT!
Date currDate;
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatGmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss");
dateFormatGmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatLocal = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss");
long currTime = 0;
try {
currDate = dateFormatLocal.parse( dateFormatGmt.format(new Date()) );
currTime = currDate.getTime();
} catch (ParseException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}

The Simple Function that you can use:
Edit: this version uses the modern java.time classes.
private static final DateTimeFormatter FORMATTER
= DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd-MM-uuuu HH:mm:ss z");
public static String getUtcDateTime() {
return ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId.of("Etc/UTC")).format(FORMATTER);
}
Return value from the method:
26-03-2022 17:38:55 UTC
Original function:
public String getUTC_DateTime() {
SimpleDateFormat dateTimeFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss z");
dateTimeFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));//gmt
return dateTimeFormat.format(new Date());
}
return of above function:
26-03-2022 08:07:21 UTC

To put it simple. A calendar object stores information about time zone but when you perform cal.getTime() then the timezone information will be lost. So for Timezone conversions I will advice to use DateFormat classes...

this is my implementation:
public static String GetCurrentTimeStamp()
{
Calendar cal=Calendar.getInstance();
long offset = cal.getTimeZone().getOffset(System.currentTimeMillis());//if you want in UTC else remove it .
return new java.sql.Timestamp(System.currentTimeMillis()+offset).toString();
}

Use this Class to get ever the right UTC Time from a Online NTP Server:
import java.net.DatagramPacket;
import java.net.DatagramSocket;
import java.net.InetAddress;
class NTP_UTC_Time
{
private static final String TAG = "SntpClient";
private static final int RECEIVE_TIME_OFFSET = 32;
private static final int TRANSMIT_TIME_OFFSET = 40;
private static final int NTP_PACKET_SIZE = 48;
private static final int NTP_PORT = 123;
private static final int NTP_MODE_CLIENT = 3;
private static final int NTP_VERSION = 3;
// Number of seconds between Jan 1, 1900 and Jan 1, 1970
// 70 years plus 17 leap days
private static final long OFFSET_1900_TO_1970 = ((365L * 70L) + 17L) * 24L * 60L * 60L;
private long mNtpTime;
public boolean requestTime(String host, int timeout) {
try {
DatagramSocket socket = new DatagramSocket();
socket.setSoTimeout(timeout);
InetAddress address = InetAddress.getByName(host);
byte[] buffer = new byte[NTP_PACKET_SIZE];
DatagramPacket request = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length, address, NTP_PORT);
buffer[0] = NTP_MODE_CLIENT | (NTP_VERSION << 3);
writeTimeStamp(buffer, TRANSMIT_TIME_OFFSET);
socket.send(request);
// read the response
DatagramPacket response = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length);
socket.receive(response);
socket.close();
mNtpTime = readTimeStamp(buffer, RECEIVE_TIME_OFFSET);
} catch (Exception e) {
// if (Config.LOGD) Log.d(TAG, "request time failed: " + e);
return false;
}
return true;
}
public long getNtpTime() {
return mNtpTime;
}
/**
* Reads an unsigned 32 bit big endian number from the given offset in the buffer.
*/
private long read32(byte[] buffer, int offset) {
byte b0 = buffer[offset];
byte b1 = buffer[offset+1];
byte b2 = buffer[offset+2];
byte b3 = buffer[offset+3];
// convert signed bytes to unsigned values
int i0 = ((b0 & 0x80) == 0x80 ? (b0 & 0x7F) + 0x80 : b0);
int i1 = ((b1 & 0x80) == 0x80 ? (b1 & 0x7F) + 0x80 : b1);
int i2 = ((b2 & 0x80) == 0x80 ? (b2 & 0x7F) + 0x80 : b2);
int i3 = ((b3 & 0x80) == 0x80 ? (b3 & 0x7F) + 0x80 : b3);
return ((long)i0 << 24) + ((long)i1 << 16) + ((long)i2 << 8) + (long)i3;
}
/**
* Reads the NTP time stamp at the given offset in the buffer and returns
* it as a system time (milliseconds since January 1, 1970).
*/
private long readTimeStamp(byte[] buffer, int offset) {
long seconds = read32(buffer, offset);
long fraction = read32(buffer, offset + 4);
return ((seconds - OFFSET_1900_TO_1970) * 1000) + ((fraction * 1000L) / 0x100000000L);
}
/**
* Writes 0 as NTP starttime stamp in the buffer. --> Then NTP returns Time OFFSET since 1900
*/
private void writeTimeStamp(byte[] buffer, int offset) {
int ofs = offset++;
for (int i=ofs;i<(ofs+8);i++)
buffer[i] = (byte)(0);
}
}
And use it with:
long now = 0;
NTP_UTC_Time client = new NTP_UTC_Time();
if (client.requestTime("pool.ntp.org", 2000)) {
now = client.getNtpTime();
}
If you need UTC Time "now" as DateTimeString use function:
private String get_UTC_Datetime_from_timestamp(long timeStamp){
try{
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
TimeZone tz = cal.getTimeZone();
int tzt = tz.getOffset(System.currentTimeMillis());
timeStamp -= tzt;
// DateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss",Locale.getDefault());
DateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat();
Date netDate = (new Date(timeStamp));
return sdf.format(netDate);
}
catch(Exception ex){
return "";
}
}
and use it with:
String UTC_DateTime = get_UTC_Datetime_from_timestamp(now);

If you want to avoid parsing the date and just want a timestamp in GMT, you could use:
final Date gmt = new Timestamp(System.currentTimeMillis()
- Calendar.getInstance().getTimeZone()
.getOffset(System.currentTimeMillis()));

public class CurrentUtcDate
{
public static void main(String[] args) {
Date date = new Date();
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss");
dateFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
System.out.println("UTC Time is: " + dateFormat.format(date));
}
}
Output:
UTC Time is: 22-01-2018 13:14:35
You can change the date format as needed.

Current date in the UTC
Instant.now().toString().replaceAll("T.*", "");

java.util.Date and getYear()

I am having the following problem in Java (I see some people are having
a similar problem in JavaScript but I'm using Java)
System.out.println(new Date().getYear());
System.out.println(new GregorianCalendar().getTime().getYear());
System.out.println(this.sale.getSaleDate().getYear());
System.out.println(this.sale.getSaleDate().getMonth());
System.out.println(this.sale.getSaleDate().getDate());
returns
I/System.out( 4274): 112
I/System.out( 4274): 112
I/System.out( 4274): 112
I/System.out( 4274): 1
I/System.out( 4274): 11
I don't understand the 112 bit which I thought would have been 2012.
What's going on? Is the
java.util.Date class unusable? I am storing this as a field in several
of my classes to store a date and time. What should I do?

In addition to all the comments, I thought I might add some code on how to use java.util.Date, java.util.Calendar and java.util.GregorianCalendar according to the javadoc.
//Initialize your Date however you like it.
Date date = new Date();
Calendar calendar = new GregorianCalendar();
calendar.setTime(date);
int year = calendar.get(Calendar.YEAR);
//Add one to month {0 - 11}
int month = calendar.get(Calendar.MONTH) + 1;
int day = calendar.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);

According to javadocs:
#Deprecated
public int getYear()
Deprecated. As of JDK version 1.1, replaced by Calendar.get(Calendar.YEAR) - 1900.
Returns a value that is the result of subtracting 1900 from the year that contains or begins with the instant in time represented by this Date object, as interpreted in the local time zone.
Returns:
the year represented by this date, minus 1900.
See Also:
Calendar
So 112 is the correct output. I would follow the advice in the Javadoc or use JodaTime instead.

Use date format
SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
Date date = format.parse(datetime);
SimpleDateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy");
year = df.format(date);

Don't use Date, use Calendar:
// Beware: months are zero-based and no out of range errors are reported
Calendar date = new GregorianCalendar(2012, 9, 5);
int year = date.get(Calendar.YEAR); // 2012
int month = date.get(Calendar.MONTH); // 9 - October!!!
int day = date.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH); // 5
It supports time as well:
Calendar dateTime = new GregorianCalendar(2012, 3, 4, 15, 16, 17);
int hour = dateTime.get(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY); // 15
int minute = dateTime.get(Calendar.MINUTE); // 16
int second = dateTime.get(Calendar.SECOND); // 17

The java documentation suggests to make use of Calendar class instead of this deprecated way
Here is the sample code to set up the calendar object
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.setTime(new Date());
Here is the sample code to get the year, month, etc.
System.out.println(calendar.get(Calendar.YEAR));
System.out.println(calendar.get(Calendar.MONTH));
Calendar also has support for many other useful information like, TIME, DAY_OF_MONTH, etc. Here the documentation listing all of them
Please note that the month are 0 based. January is 0th month.

tl;dr
LocalDate.now() // Capture the date-only value current in the JVM’s current default time zone.
.getYear() // Extract the year number from that date.
2018
java.time
Both the java.util.Date and java.util.Calendar classes are legacy, now supplanted by the java.time framework built into Java 8 and later.
A time zone is crucial in determining a date. For any given moment, the date varies around the globe by zone. For example, a few minutes after midnight in Paris France is a new day while still “yesterday” in Montréal Québec.
If no time zone is specified, the JVM implicitly applies its current default time zone. That default may change at any moment, so your results may vary. Better to specify your desired/expected time zone explicitly as an argument.
Specify a proper time zone name in the format of continent/region, such as America/Montreal, Africa/Casablanca, or Pacific/Auckland. Never use the 3-4 letter abbreviation such as EST or IST as they are not true time zones, not standardized, and not even unique(!).
ZoneId z = ZoneId.of( "Africa/Tunis" ) ;
If you want only the date without time-of-day, use LocalDate. This class lacks time zone info but you can specify a time zone to determine the current date.
ZoneId zoneId = ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" );
LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.now( zoneId );
You can get the various pieces of information with getYear, getMonth, and getDayOfMonth. You will actually get the year number with java.time!
int year = localDate.getYear();
2016
If you want a date-time instead of just a date, use ZonedDateTime class.
ZonedDateTime zdt = ZonedDateTime.now( zoneId ) ;
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old date-time classes such as java.util.Date, .Calendar, & java.text.SimpleDateFormat.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations.
Much of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & Java 7 in ThreeTen-Backport and further adapted to Android in ThreeTenABP (see How to use…).
The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.

Yup, this is in fact what's happening. See also the Javadoc:
Returns:
the year represented by this date, minus 1900.
The getYear method is deprecated for this reason. So, don't use it.
Note also that getMonth returns a number between 0 and 11. Therefore, this.sale.getSaleDate().getMonth() returns 1 for February, instead of 2. While java.util.Calendar doesn't add 1900 to all years, it does suffer from the off-by-one-month problem.
You're much better off using JodaTime.

Java 8 LocalDate class is another option to get the year from a java.util.Date,
int year = LocalDate.parse(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd").format(date)).getYear();
Another option is,
int year = Integer.parseInt(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy").format(date));

There are may ways of getting day, month and year in java.
You may use any-
Date date1 = new Date();
String mmddyyyy1 = new SimpleDateFormat("MM-dd-yyyy").format(date1);
System.out.println("Formatted Date 1: " + mmddyyyy1);
Date date2 = new Date();
Calendar calendar1 = new GregorianCalendar();
calendar1.setTime(date2);
int day1 = calendar1.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
int month1 = calendar1.get(Calendar.MONTH) + 1; // {0 - 11}
int year1 = calendar1.get(Calendar.YEAR);
String mmddyyyy2 = ((month1<10)?"0"+month1:month1) + "-" + ((day1<10)?"0"+day1:day1) + "-" + (year1);
System.out.println("Formatted Date 2: " + mmddyyyy2);
LocalDateTime ldt1 = LocalDateTime.now();
DateTimeFormatter format1 = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("MM-dd-yyyy");
String mmddyyyy3 = ldt1.format(format1);
System.out.println("Formatted Date 3: " + mmddyyyy3);
LocalDateTime ldt2 = LocalDateTime.now();
int day2 = ldt2.getDayOfMonth();
int mont2= ldt2.getMonthValue();
int year2= ldt2.getYear();
String mmddyyyy4 = ((mont2<10)?"0"+mont2:mont2) + "-" + ((day2<10)?"0"+day2:day2) + "-" + (year2);
System.out.println("Formatted Date 4: " + mmddyyyy4);
LocalDateTime ldt3 = LocalDateTime.of(2020, 6, 11, 14, 30); // int year, int month, int dayOfMonth, int hour, int minute
DateTimeFormatter format2 = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("MM-dd-yyyy");
String mmddyyyy5 = ldt3.format(format2);
System.out.println("Formatted Date 5: " + mmddyyyy5);
Calendar calendar2 = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar2.setTime(new Date());
int day3 = calendar2.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH); // OR Calendar.DATE
int month3= calendar2.get(Calendar.MONTH) + 1;
int year3 = calendar2.get(Calendar.YEAR);
String mmddyyyy6 = ((month3<10)?"0"+month3:month3) + "-" + ((day3<10)?"0"+day3:day3) + "-" + (year3);
System.out.println("Formatted Date 6: " + mmddyyyy6);
Date date3 = new Date();
LocalDate ld1 = LocalDate.parse(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd").format(date3)); // Accepts only yyyy-MM-dd
int day4 = ld1.getDayOfMonth();
int month4= ld1.getMonthValue();
int year4 = ld1.getYear();
String mmddyyyy7 = ((month4<10)?"0"+month4:month4) + "-" + ((day4<10)?"0"+day4:day4) + "-" + (year4);
System.out.println("Formatted Date 7: " + mmddyyyy7);
Date date4 = new Date();
int day5 = LocalDate.parse(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd").format(date4)).getDayOfMonth();
int month5 = LocalDate.parse(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd").format(date4)).getMonthValue();
int year5 = LocalDate.parse(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd").format(date4)).getYear();
String mmddyyyy8 = ((month5<10)?"0"+month5:month5) + "-" + ((day5<10)?"0"+day5:day5) + "-" + (year5);
System.out.println("Formatted Date 8: " + mmddyyyy8);
Date date5 = new Date();
int day6 = Integer.parseInt(new SimpleDateFormat("dd").format(date5));
int month6 = Integer.parseInt(new SimpleDateFormat("MM").format(date5));
int year6 = Integer.parseInt(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy").format(date5));
String mmddyyyy9 = ((month6<10)?"0"+month6:month6) + "-" + ((day6<10)?"0"+day6:day6) + "-" + (year6);
System.out.println("Formatted Date 9: " + mmddyyyy9);

Year.now()
There's an easier way to use the java.time library in Java 8+. The expression:
java.time.Year.now().getValue()
returns the current year as a four-digit int, using your default time zone. There are lots of options for different time ZoneIds, Calendars and Clocks, but I think this is what you will want most of the time. If you want the code to look cleaner (and don't need any other java.time.*.now() functions), put:
import static java.time.Year.now;
at the top of your file, and call:
now().getValue()
as needed.

This behavior is documented in the java.util.Date -class documentation:
Returns a value that is the result of subtracting 1900 from the year
that contains or begins with the instant in time represented by this
Date object, as interpreted in the local time zone.
It is also marked as deprecated. Use java.util.Calendar instead.

try{
int year = Integer.parseInt(new Date().toString().split("-")[0]);
}
catch(NumberFormatException e){
}
Much of Date is deprecated.

Losing an hour when returning a January 1970 Date from milliseconds

I have the following code that takes a String of milliseconds (will be from an RSS feed so will be a String, the example below is a quick test program) and converts those millis into a Date object.
public static void main(String[] args) {
String ms = "1302805253";
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss zzz");
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.setTimeInMillis(Long.parseLong(ms));
try {
String dateFormat = dateFormatter.format(calendar.getTime());
System.out.println("Date Format = " + dateFormat);
Date dateParse = dateFormatter.parse(dateFormatter.format(calendar.getTime()));
System.out.println("Date Parse = " + dateParse);
} catch (ParseException e) {
// TODO: handle exception
}
}
Output:
Date Format = Fri, 16 Jan 1970 02:53:25 GMT
Date Parse = Fri Jan 16 03:53:25 GMT 1970
As you can see, between the formatting of the calendar object and parsing of the resulting String, an hour is being lost. Also, the formatting of the output has changed. Can anyone help me as to why this is happening, and how to get around it? I want the Date object to be the same format as the "Date Format" output.

I believe it's happening because the UK didn't actually use GMT in 1970, and Java has a bug around that... it will format a date in 1970 as if the UK were using GMT, but without actually changing the offset. Simple example:
Date date = new Date(0);
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss zzz");
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("Europe/London"));
System.out.println(sdf.format(date));
Result:
01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 GMT
Note that it claims it's 1am GMT... which is incorrect. It was 1am in Europe/London time, but Europe/London wasn't observing GMT.
Joda Time gets this right in that it prints out BST - but Joda Time doesn't like parsing values with time zone abbreviations. However, you can get it to use time zone offets instead:
import org.joda.time.*;
import org.joda.time.format.*;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
DateTime date = new DateTime(0, DateTimeZone.forID("Europe/London"));
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormat.forPattern(
"dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z");
String text = formatter.print(date); // 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100
System.out.println(text);
DateTime parsed = formatter.parseDateTime(text);
System.out.println(parsed.equals(date)); // true
}
}

The Answer by Jon Skeet is correct.
java.time
Let’s run the same input through java.time to see the results.
Specify a proper time zone name. Never use the 3-4 letter abbreviation such as BST, EST, or IST as they are not true time zones, not standardized, and not even unique(!). So we use Europe/London.
The Instant class represents a moment on the timeline in UTC with a resolution of nanoseconds.
String input = "1302805253";
long millis = Long.parseLong ( input );
Instant instant = Instant.ofEpochMilli ( millis );
Apply a time zone to produce a ZonedDateTime object.
ZoneId zoneId = ZoneId.of ( "Europe/London" );
ZonedDateTime zdt = instant.atZone ( zoneId );
Dump to console. We see indeed that Europe/London time is an hour ahead of UTC at that moment. So the time-of-day is 02 hours rather than 01 hours. Both represent the same simultaneous moment on the timeline, just viewed through the lenses of two different wall-clock times.
System.out.println ( "input: " + input + " | instant: " + instant + " | zdt: " + zdt );
input: 1302805253 | instant: 1970-01-16T01:53:25.253Z | zdt: 1970-01-16T02:53:25.253+01:00[Europe/London]
Whole seconds
By the way, I suspect your input string represents whole seconds since epoch of 1970 UTC rather than milliseconds. Interpreted that as seconds we get a date in 2011, in the month this Question posted.
String output = Instant.ofEpochSecond ( Long.parseLong ( "1302805253" ) ).atZone ( ZoneId.of ( "Europe/London" ) ).toString ();
2011-04-14T19:20:53+01:00[Europe/London]
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the old troublesome date-time classes such as java.util.Date, .Calendar, & java.text.SimpleDateFormat.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to java.time.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations.
Much of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport and further adapted to Android in ThreeTenABP.
The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time.

How to get the current date/time in Java [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How to get the current date and time
(10 answers)
Closed 2 years ago.
What's the best way to get the current date/time in Java?

It depends on what form of date / time you want:
If you want the date / time as a single numeric value, then System.currentTimeMillis() gives you that, expressed as the number of milliseconds after the UNIX epoch (as a Java long). This value is a delta from a UTC time-point, and is independent of the local time-zone1.
If you want the date / time in a form that allows you to access the components (year, month, etc) numerically, you could use one of the following:
new Date() gives you a Date object initialized with the current date / time. The problem is that the Date API methods are mostly flawed ... and deprecated.
Calendar.getInstance() gives you a Calendar object initialized with the current date / time, using the default Locale and TimeZone. Other overloads allow you to use a specific Locale and/or TimeZone. Calendar works ... but the APIs are still cumbersome.
new org.joda.time.DateTime() gives you a Joda-time object initialized with the current date / time, using the default time zone and chronology. There are lots of other Joda alternatives ... too many to describe here. (But note that some people report that Joda time has performance issues.; e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6280829.)
in Java 8, calling java.time.LocalDateTime.now() and java.time.ZonedDateTime.now() will give you representations2 for the current date / time.
Prior to Java 8, most people who know about these things recommended Joda-time as having (by far) the best Java APIs for doing things involving time point and duration calculations.
With Java 8 and later, the standard java.time package is recommended. Joda time is now considered "obsolete", and the Joda maintainers are recommending that people migrate.3.
1 - System.currentTimeMillis() gives the "system" time. While it is normal practice for the system clock to be set to (nominal) UTC, there will be a difference (a delta) between the local UTC clock and true UTC. The size of the delta depends on how well (and how often) the system's clock is synced with UTC.
2 - Note that LocalDateTime doesn't include a time zone. As the javadoc says: "It cannot represent an instant on the time-line without additional information such as an offset or time-zone."
3 - Note: your Java 8 code won't break if you don't migrate, but the Joda codebase may eventually stop getting bug fixes and other patches. As of 2020-02, an official "end of life" for Joda has not been announced, and the Joda APIs have not been marked as Deprecated.

(Attention: only for use with Java versions <8. For Java 8+ check other replies.)
If you just need to output a time stamp in format YYYY.MM.DD-HH.MM.SS (very frequent case) then here's the way to do it:
String timeStamp = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd_HHmmss").format(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());

If you want the current date as String, try this:
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss");
Date date = new Date();
System.out.println(dateFormat.format(date));
or
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss");
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
System.out.println(dateFormat.format(cal.getTime()));
http://www.mkyong.com/java/java-how-to-get-current-date-time-date-and-calender/

tl;dr
Instant.now() // Capture the current moment in UTC, with a resolution of nanoseconds. Returns a `Instant` object.
… or …
ZonedDateTime.now( // Capture the current moment as seen in…
ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" ) // … the wall-clock time used by the people of a particular region (a time zone).
) // Returns a `ZonedDateTime` object.
java.time
A few of the Answers mention that java.time classes are the modern replacement for the troublesome old legacy date-time classes bundled with the earliest versions of Java. Below is a bit more information.
Time zone
The other Answers fail to explain how a time zone is crucial in determining the current date and time. For any given moment, the date and the time vary around the globe by zone. For example, a few minutes after midnight is a new day in Paris France while still being “yesterday” in Montréal Québec.
Instant
Much of your business logic and data storage/exchange should be done in UTC, as a best practice.
To get the current moment in UTC with a resolution in nanoseconds, use Instant class. Conventional computer hardware clocks are limited in their accuracy, so the current moment may be captured in milliseconds or microseconds rather than nanoseconds.
Instant instant = Instant.now();
ZonedDateTime
You can adjust that Instant into other time zones. Apply a ZoneId object to get a ZonedDateTime.
ZoneId z = ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" );
ZonedDateTime zdt = instant.atZone( z );
We can skip the Instant and get the current ZonedDateTime directly.
ZonedDateTime zdt = ZonedDateTime.now( z );
Always pass that optional time zone argument. If omitted, your JVM’s current default time zone is applied. The default can change at any moment, even during runtime. Do not subject your app to an externality out of your control. Always specify the desired/expected time zone.
ZonedDateTime do_Not_Do_This = ZonedDateTime.now(); // BAD - Never rely implicitly on the current default time zone.
You can later extract an Instant from the ZonedDateTime.
Instant instant = zdt.toInstant();
Always use an Instant or ZonedDateTime rather than a LocalDateTime when you want an actual moment on the timeline. The Local… types purposely have no concept of time zone so they represent only a rough idea of a possible moment. To get an actual moment you must assign a time zone to transform the Local… types into a ZonedDateTime and thereby make it meaningful.
LocalDate
The LocalDate class represents a date-only value without time-of-day and without time zone.
ZoneId z = ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" );
LocalDate today = LocalDate.now( z ); // Always pass a time zone.
Strings
To generate a String representing the date-time value, simply call toString on the java.time classes for the standard ISO 8601 formats.
String output = myLocalDate.toString(); // 2016-09-23
… or …
String output = zdt.toString(); // 2016-09-23T12:34:56.789+03:00[America/Montreal]
The ZonedDateTime class extends the standard format by wisely appending the name of the time zone in square brackets.
For other formats, search Stack Overflow for many Questions and Answers on the DateTimeFormatter class.
Avoid LocalDateTime
Contrary to the comment on the Question by RamanSB, you should not use LocalDateTime class for the current date-time.
The LocalDateTime purposely lacks any time zone or offset-from-UTC information. So, this is not appropriate when you are tracking a specific moment on the timeline. Certainly not appropriate for capturing the current moment.
A LocalDateTime has only a date and a time-of-day such as "noon on 23rd of January 2020", but we have no idea if that is noon in Tokyo Japan or noon in Toledo Ohio US, two different moments many hours apart.
The “Local” wording is counter-intuitive. It means any locality rather than any one specific locality. For example Christmas this year starts at midnight on the 25th of December: 2017-12-25T00:00:00, to be represented as a LocalDateTime. But this means midnight at various points around the globe at different times. Midnight happens first in Kiribati, later in New Zealand, hours more later in India, and so on, with several more hours passing before Christmas begins in France when the kids in Canada are still awaiting that day. Each one of these Christmas-start points would be represented as a separate ZonedDateTime.
From outside your system
If you cannot trust your system clock, see Java: Get current Date and Time from Server not System clock and my Answer.
java.time.Clock
To harness an alternate supplier of the current moment, write a subclass of the abstract java.time.Clock class.
You can pass your Clock implementation as an argument to the various java.time methods. For example, Instant.now( clock ).
Instant instant = Instant.now( yourClockGoesHere ) ;
For testing purposes, note the alternate implementations of Clock available statically from Clock itself: fixed, offset, tick, and more.
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
You may exchange java.time objects directly with your database. Use a JDBC driver compliant with JDBC 4.2 or later. No need for strings, no need for java.sql.* classes.
Where to obtain the java.time classes?
Java SE 8, Java SE 9, Java SE 10, Java SE 11, and later - Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes.
Java SE 6 and Java SE 7
Most of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
Android
Later versions of Android bundle implementations of the java.time classes.
For earlier Android (<26), the ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above). See How to use ThreeTenABP….
The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.

In Java 8 it is:
LocalDateTime.now()
and in case you need time zone info:
ZonedDateTime.now()
and in case you want to print fancy formatted string:
System.out.println(ZonedDateTime.now().format(DateTimeFormatter.RFC_1123_DATE_TIME))

Just create a Date object...
import java.util.Date;
Date date = new Date();

// 2015/09/27 15:07:53
System.out.println( new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss").format(Calendar.getInstance().getTime()) );
// 15:07:53
System.out.println( new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss").format(Calendar.getInstance().getTime()) );
// 09/28/2015
System.out.println(new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy").format(Calendar.getInstance().getTime()));
// 20150928_161823
System.out.println( new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd_HHmmss").format(Calendar.getInstance().getTime()) );
// Mon Sep 28 16:24:28 CEST 2015
System.out.println( Calendar.getInstance().getTime() );
// Mon Sep 28 16:24:51 CEST 2015
System.out.println( new Date(System.currentTimeMillis()) );
// Mon Sep 28
System.out.println( new Date().toString().substring(0, 10) );
// 2015-09-28
System.out.println( new java.sql.Date(System.currentTimeMillis()) );
// 14:32:26
Date d = new Date();
System.out.println( (d.getTime() / 1000 / 60 / 60) % 24 + ":" + (d.getTime() / 1000 / 60) % 60 + ":" + (d.getTime() / 1000) % 60 );
// 2015-09-28 17:12:35.584
System.out.println( new Timestamp(System.currentTimeMillis()) );
// Java 8
// 2015-09-28T16:16:23.308+02:00[Europe/Belgrade]
System.out.println( ZonedDateTime.now() );
// Mon, 28 Sep 2015 16:16:23 +0200
System.out.println( ZonedDateTime.now().format(DateTimeFormatter.RFC_1123_DATE_TIME) );
// 2015-09-28
System.out.println( LocalDate.now(ZoneId.of("Europe/Paris")) ); // rest zones id in ZoneId class
// 16
System.out.println( LocalTime.now().getHour() );
// 2015-09-28T16:16:23.315
System.out.println( LocalDateTime.now() );

Use:
String timeStamp = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd_HHmmss").format(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());
System.out.println(timeStamp );
(It's working.)

There are many different methods:
System.currentTimeMillis()
Date
Calendar

Create object of date and simply print it down.
Date d = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis());
System.out.print(d);

java.util.Date date = new java.util.Date();
It's automatically populated with the time it's instantiated.

Similar to above solutions. But I always find myself looking for this chunk of code:
Date date=Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
System.out.println(date);

For java.util.Date, just create a new Date()
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss");
Date date = new Date();
System.out.println(dateFormat.format(date)); //2016/11/16 12:08:43
For java.util.Calendar, uses Calendar.getInstance()
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss");
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
System.out.println(dateFormat.format(cal)); //2016/11/16 12:08:43
For java.time.LocalDateTime, uses LocalDateTime.now()
DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss");
LocalDateTime now = LocalDateTime.now();
System.out.println(dtf.format(now)); //2016/11/16 12:08:43
For java.time.LocalDate, uses LocalDate.now()
DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy/MM/dd");
LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.now();
System.out.println(dtf.format(localDate)); //2016/11/16
Reference: https://www.mkyong.com/java/java-how-to-get-current-date-time-date-and-calender/

1st Understand the java.util.Date class
1.1 How to obtain current Date
import java.util.Date;
class Demostration{
public static void main(String[]args){
Date date = new Date(); // date object
System.out.println(date); // Try to print the date object
}
}
1.2 How to use getTime() method
import java.util.Date;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[]args){
Date date = new Date();
long timeInMilliSeconds = date.getTime();
System.out.println(timeInMilliSeconds);
}
}
This will return the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT for time comparison purposes.
1.3 How to format time using SimpleDateFormat class
import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
class Demostration{
public static void main(String[]args){
Date date=new Date();
DateFormat dateFormat=new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
String formattedDate=dateFormat.format(date);
System.out.println(formattedDate);
}
}
Also try using different format patterns like "yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss" and select desired pattern. http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html
2nd Understand the java.util.Calendar class
2.1 Using Calendar Class to obtain current time stamp
import java.util.Calendar;
class Demostration{
public static void main(String[]args){
Calendar calendar=Calendar.getInstance();
System.out.println(calendar.getTime());
}
}
2.2 Try using setTime and other set methods for set calendar to different date.
Source: http://javau91.blogspot.com/

Have you looked at java.util.Date? It is exactly what you want.

Java 8 or above
LocalDateTime.now() and ZonedDateTime.now()

I find this to be the best way:
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss");
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
System.out.println(dateFormat.format(cal.getTime())); // 2014/08/06 16:00:22

Have a look at the Date class. There's also the newer Calendar class which is the preferred method of doing many date / time operations (a lot of the methods on Date have been deprecated.)
If you just want the current date, then either create a new Date object or call Calendar.getInstance();.

As mentioned the basic Date() can do what you need in terms of getting the current time. In my recent experience working heavily with Java dates there are a lot of oddities with the built in classes (as well as deprecation of many of the Date class methods). One oddity that stood out to me was that months are 0 index based which from a technical standpoint makes sense, but in real terms can be very confusing.
If you are only concerned with the current date that should suffice - however if you intend to do a lot of manipulating/calculations with dates it could be very beneficial to use a third party library (so many exist because many Java developers have been unsatisfied with the built in functionality).
I second Stephen C's recommendation as I have found Joda-time to be very useful in simplifying my work with dates, it is also very well documented and you can find many useful examples throughout the web. I even ended up writing a static wrapper class (as DateUtils) which I use to consolidate and simplify all of my common date manipulation.

Use:
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy:MM:dd::HH:mm:ss");
System.out.println(sdf.format(System.currentTimeMillis()));
The print statement will print the time when it is called and not when the SimpleDateFormat was created. So it can be called repeatedly without creating any new objects.

System.out.println( new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy:MM:dd - hh:mm:ss a").format(Calendar.getInstance().getTime()) );
//2018:02:10 - 05:04:20 PM
date/time with AM/PM

New Data-Time API is introduced with the dawn of Java 8. This is due
to following issues that were caused in the old data-time API.
Difficult to handle time zone : need to write lot of code to deal with
time zones.
Not Thread Safe : java.util.Date is not thread safe.
So have a look around with Java 8
import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.LocalTime;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.Month;
public class DataTimeChecker {
public static void main(String args[]) {
DataTimeChecker dateTimeChecker = new DataTimeChecker();
dateTimeChecker.DateTime();
}
public void DateTime() {
// Get the current date and time
LocalDateTime currentTime = LocalDateTime.now();
System.out.println("Current DateTime: " + currentTime);
LocalDate date1 = currentTime.toLocalDate();
System.out.println("Date : " + date1);
Month month = currentTime.getMonth();
int day = currentTime.getDayOfMonth();
int seconds = currentTime.getSecond();
System.out.println("Month : " + month);
System.out.println("Day : " + day);
System.out.println("Seconds : " + seconds);
LocalDateTime date2 = currentTime.withDayOfMonth(17).withYear(2018);
System.out.println("Date : " + date2);
//Prints 17 May 2018
LocalDate date3 = LocalDate.of(2018, Month.MAY, 17);
System.out.println("Date : " + date3);
//Prints 04 hour 45 minutes
LocalTime date4 = LocalTime.of(4, 45);
System.out.println("Date : " + date4);
// Convert to a String
LocalTime date5 = LocalTime.parse("20:15:30");
System.out.println("Date : " + date5);
}
}
Output of the coding above :
Current DateTime: 2018-05-17T04:40:34.603
Date : 2018-05-17
Month : MAY
Day : 17
Seconds : 34
Date : 2018-05-17T04:40:34.603
Date : 2018-05-17
Date : 04:45
Date : 20:15:30

I created this methods, it works for me...
public String GetDay() {
return String.valueOf(LocalDateTime.now().format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd")));
}
public String GetNameOfTheDay() {
return String.valueOf(LocalDateTime.now().getDayOfWeek());
}
public String GetMonth() {
return String.valueOf(LocalDateTime.now().format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("MM")));
}
public String GetNameOfTheMonth() {
return String.valueOf(LocalDateTime.now().getMonth());
}
public String GetYear() {
return String.valueOf(LocalDateTime.now().format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy")));
}
public boolean isLeapYear(long year) {
return Year.isLeap(year);
}
public String GetDate() {
return GetDay() + "/" + GetMonth() + "/" + GetYear();
}
public String Get12HHour() {
return String.valueOf(LocalDateTime.now().format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("hh")));
}
public String Get24HHour() {
return String.valueOf(LocalDateTime.now().getHour());
}
public String GetMinutes() {
return String.valueOf(LocalDateTime.now().format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("mm")));
}
public String GetSeconds() {
return String.valueOf(LocalDateTime.now().format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("ss")));
}
public String Get24HTime() {
return Get24HHour() + ":" + GetMinutes();
}
public String Get24HFullTime() {
return Get24HHour() + ":" + GetMinutes() + ":" + GetSeconds();
}
public String Get12HTime() {
return Get12HHour() + ":" + GetMinutes();
}
public String Get12HFullTime() {
return Get12HHour() + ":" + GetMinutes() + ":" + GetSeconds();
}

import java.util.*;
import java.text.*;
public class DateDemo {
public static void main(String args[]) {
Date dNow = new Date( );
SimpleDateFormat ft =
new SimpleDateFormat ("E yyyy.MM.dd 'at' hh:mm:ss a zzz");
System.out.println("Current Date: " + ft.format(dNow));
}
}
you can use date for fet current data. so using SimpleDateFormat get format

just try this code:
import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;
public class CurrentTimeDateCalendar {
public static void getCurrentTimeUsingDate() {
Date date = new Date();
String strDateFormat = "hh:mm:ss a";
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(strDateFormat);
String formattedDate= dateFormat.format(date);
System.out.println("Current time of the day using Date - 12 hour format: " + formattedDate);
}
public static void getCurrentTimeUsingCalendar() {
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
Date date=cal.getTime();
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss");
String formattedDate=dateFormat.format(date);
System.out.println("Current time of the day using Calendar - 24 hour format: "+ formattedDate);
}
}
which the sample output is:
Current time of the day using Date - 12 hour format: 11:13:01 PM
Current time of the day using Calendar - 24 hour format: 23:13:01
more information on:
Getting Current Date Time in Java

Current Date using java 8:
First, let's use java.time.LocalDate to get the current system date:
LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.now();
To get the date in any other timezone we can use LocalDate.now(ZoneId):
LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.now(ZoneId.of("GMT+02:30"));
We can also use java.time.LocalDateTime to get an instance of LocalDate:
LocalDateTime localDateTime = LocalDateTime.now();
LocalDate localDate = localDateTime.toLocalDate();

You can use Date object and format by yourself. It is hard to format and need more codes, as a example,
Date dateInstance = new Date();
int year = dateInstance.getYear()+1900;//Returns:the year represented by this date, minus 1900.
int date = dateInstance.getDate();
int month = dateInstance.getMonth();
int day = dateInstance.getDay();
int hours = dateInstance.getHours();
int min = dateInstance.getMinutes();
int sec = dateInstance.getSeconds();
String dayOfWeek = "";
switch(day){
case 0:
dayOfWeek = "Sunday";
break;
case 1:
dayOfWeek = "Monday";
break;
case 2:
dayOfWeek = "Tuesday";
break;
case 3:
dayOfWeek = "Wednesday";
break;
case 4:
dayOfWeek = "Thursday";
break;
case 5:
dayOfWeek = "Friday";
break;
case 6:
dayOfWeek = "Saturday";
break;
}
System.out.println("Date: " + year +"-"+ month + "-" + date + " "+ dayOfWeek);
System.out.println("Time: " + hours +":"+ min + ":" + sec);
output:
Date: 2017-6-23 Sunday
Time: 14:6:20
As you can see this is the worst way you can do it and according to oracle documentation it is deprecated.
Oracle doc:
The class Date represents a specific instant in time, with millisecond
precision.
Prior to JDK 1.1, the class Date had two additional functions. It
allowed the interpretation of dates as year, month, day, hour, minute,
and second values. It also allowed the formatting and parsing of date
strings. Unfortunately, the API for these functions was not amenable
to internationalization. As of JDK 1.1, the Calendar class should be
used to convert between dates and time fields and the DateFormat class
should be used to format and parse date strings. The corresponding
methods in Date are deprecated.
So alternatively, you can use Calendar class,
Calendar.YEAR;
//and lot more
To get current time, you can use:
Calendar rightNow = Calendar.getInstance();
Doc:
Like other locale-sensitive classes, Calendar provides a class method,
getInstance, for getting a generally useful object of this type.
Calendar's getInstance method returns a Calendar object whose calendar
fields have been initialized with the current date and time
Below code for to get only date
Date rightNow = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
System.out.println(rightNow);
Also, Calendar class have Subclasses. GregorianCalendar is a one of them and concrete subclass of Calendar and provides the standard calendar system used by most of the world.
Example using GregorianCalendar:
Calendar cal = new GregorianCalendar();
int hours = cal.get(Calendar.HOUR);
int minute = cal.get(Calendar.MINUTE);
int second = cal.get(Calendar.SECOND);
int ap = cal.get(Calendar.AM_PM);
String amVSpm;
if(ap == 0){
amVSpm = "AM";
}else{
amVSpm = "PM";
}
String timer = hours + "-" + minute + "-" + second + " " +amVSpm;
System.out.println(timer);
You can use SimpleDateFormat, simple and quick way to format date:
String pattern = "yyyy-MM-dd";
SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern);
String date = simpleDateFormat.format(new Date());
System.out.println(date);
Read this Jakob Jenkov tutorial: Java SimpleDateFormat.
As others mentioned, when we need to do manipulation from dates, we didn't had simple and best way or we couldn't satisfied built in classes, APIs.
As a example, When we need to get different between two dates, when we need to compare two dates(there is in-built method also for this) and many more. We had to use third party libraries. One of the good and popular one is Joda Time.
Also read:
How to get properly current date and time in Joda-Time?
JodaTime - how to get current time in UTC
Examples for JodaTime.
Download Joda
.
The happiest thing is now(in java 8), no one need to download and use libraries for any reasons. A simple example to get current date & time in Java 8,
LocalTime localTime = LocalTime.now();
System.out.println(localTime);
//with time zone
LocalTime localTimeWtZone = LocalTime.now(ZoneId.of("GMT+02:30"));
System.out.println(localTimeWtZone);
One of the good blog post to read about Java 8 date.
And keep remeber to find out more about Java date and time because there is lot more ways and/or useful ways that you can get/use.
Oracle tutorials for date & time.
Oracle tutorials for formatter.
Lesson: Standard Calendar.
EDIT:
According to #BasilBourque comment, the troublesome old date-time classes such as java.util.Date, java.util.Calendar, and java.text.SimpleTextFormat are now legacy, supplanted by the java.time classes.

I'll go ahead and throw this answer in because it is all I needed when I had the same question:
Date currentDate = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis());
currentDate is now your current date in a Java Date object.

How can I get the current date and time in UTC or GMT in Java?

Want to improve this post? Provide detailed answers to this question, including citations and an explanation of why your answer is correct. Answers without enough detail may be edited or deleted.
When I create a new Date object, it is initialized to the current time but in the local timezone. How can I get the current date and time in GMT?

tl;dr
Instant.now() // Capture the current moment in UTC.
Generate a String to represent that value:
Instant.now().toString()
2016-09-13T23:30:52.123Z
Details
As the correct answer by Jon Skeet stated, a java.util.Date object has no time zone†. But its toString implementation applies the JVM’s default time zone when generating the String representation of that date-time value. Confusingly to the naïve programmer, a Date seems to have a time zone but does not.
The java.util.Date, j.u.Calendar, and java.text.SimpleDateFormat classes bundled with Java are notoriously troublesome. Avoid them. Instead, use either of these competent date-time libraries:
java.time.* package in Java 8
Joda-Time
java.time (Java 8)
Java 8 brings an excellent new java.time.* package to supplant the old java.util.Date/Calendar classes.
Getting current time in UTC/GMT is a simple one-liner…
Instant instant = Instant.now();
That Instant class is the basic building block in java.time, representing a moment on the timeline in UTC with a resolution of nanoseconds.
In Java 8, the current moment is captured with only up to milliseconds resolution. Java 9 brings a fresh implementation of Clock captures the current moment in up to the full nanosecond capability of this class, depending on the ability of your host computer’s clock hardware.
It’s toString method generates a String representation of its value using one specific ISO 8601 format. That format outputs zero, three, six or nine digits digits (milliseconds, microseconds, or nanoseconds) as necessary to represent the fraction-of-second.
If you want more flexible formatting, or other additional features, then apply an offset-from-UTC of zero, for UTC itself (ZoneOffset.UTC constant) to get a OffsetDateTime.
OffsetDateTime now = OffsetDateTime.now( ZoneOffset.UTC );
Dump to console…
System.out.println( "now.toString(): " + now );
When run…
now.toString(): 2014-01-21T23:42:03.522Z
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
You may exchange java.time objects directly with your database. Use a JDBC driver compliant with JDBC 4.2 or later. No need for strings, no need for java.sql.* classes.
Where to obtain the java.time classes?
Java SE 8, Java SE 9, Java SE 10, Java SE 11, and later - Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes.
Java SE 6 and Java SE 7
Most of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
Android
Later versions of Android bundle implementations of the java.time classes.
For earlier Android (<26), the ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above). See How to use ThreeTenABP….
The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.
Joda-Time
UPDATE: The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
Using the Joda-Time 3rd-party open-source free-of-cost library, you can get the current date-time in just one line of code.
Joda-Time inspired the new java.time.* classes in Java 8, but has a different architecture. You may use Joda-Time in older versions of Java. Joda-Time continues to work in Java 8 and continues to be actively maintained (as of 2014). However, the Joda-Time team does advise migration to java.time.
System.out.println( "UTC/GMT date-time in ISO 8601 format: " + new org.joda.time.DateTime( org.joda.time.DateTimeZone.UTC ) );
More detailed example code (Joda-Time 2.3)…
org.joda.time.DateTime now = new org.joda.time.DateTime(); // Default time zone.
org.joda.time.DateTime zulu = now.toDateTime( org.joda.time.DateTimeZone.UTC );
Dump to console…
System.out.println( "Local time in ISO 8601 format: " + now );
System.out.println( "Same moment in UTC (Zulu): " + zulu );
When run…
Local time in ISO 8601 format: 2014-01-21T15:34:29.933-08:00
Same moment in UTC (Zulu): 2014-01-21T23:34:29.933Z
For more example code doing time zone work, see my answer to a similar question.
Time Zone
I recommend you always specify a time zone rather than relying implicitly on the JVM’s current default time zone (which can change at any moment!). Such reliance seems to be a common cause of confusion and bugs in date-time work.
When calling now() pass the desired/expected time zone to be assigned. Use the DateTimeZone class.
DateTimeZone zoneMontréal = DateTimeZone.forID( "America/Montreal" );
DateTime now = DateTime.now( zoneMontréal );
That class holds a constant for UTC time zone.
DateTime now = DateTime.now( DateTimeZone.UTC );
If you truly want to use the JVM’s current default time zone, make an explicit call so your code is self-documenting.
DateTimeZone zoneDefault = DateTimeZone.getDefault();
ISO 8601
Read about ISO 8601 formats. Both java.time and Joda-Time use that standard’s sensible formats as their defaults for both parsing and generating strings.
† Actually, java.util.Date does have a time zone, buried deep under layers of source code. For most practical purposes, that time zone is ignored. So, as shorthand, we say java.util.Date has no time zone. Furthermore, that buried time zone is not the one used by Date’s toString method; that method uses the JVM’s current default time zone. All the more reason to avoid this confusing class and stick with Joda-Time and java.time.

java.util.Date has no specific time zone, although its value is most commonly thought of in relation to UTC. What makes you think it's in local time?
To be precise: the value within a java.util.Date is the number of milliseconds since the Unix epoch, which occurred at midnight January 1st 1970, UTC. The same epoch could also be described in other time zones, but the traditional description is in terms of UTC. As it's a number of milliseconds since a fixed epoch, the value within java.util.Date is the same around the world at any particular instant, regardless of local time zone.
I suspect the problem is that you're displaying it via an instance of Calendar which uses the local timezone, or possibly using Date.toString() which also uses the local timezone, or a SimpleDateFormat instance, which, by default, also uses local timezone.
If this isn't the problem, please post some sample code.
I would, however, recommend that you use Joda-Time anyway, which offers a much clearer API.

SimpleDateFormat dateFormatGmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss");
dateFormatGmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
//Local time zone
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatLocal = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss");
//Time in GMT
return dateFormatLocal.parse( dateFormatGmt.format(new Date()) );

This definitely returns UTC time: as String and Date objects !
static final String DATE_FORMAT = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss";
public static Date getUTCdatetimeAsDate() {
// note: doesn't check for null
return stringDateToDate(getUTCdatetimeAsString());
}
public static String getUTCdatetimeAsString() {
final SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(DATE_FORMAT);
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
final String utcTime = sdf.format(new Date());
return utcTime;
}
public static Date stringDateToDate(String StrDate) {
Date dateToReturn = null;
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(DATEFORMAT);
try {
dateToReturn = (Date)dateFormat.parse(StrDate);
}
catch (ParseException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return dateToReturn;
}

Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
System.out.println("current: "+c.getTime());
TimeZone z = c.getTimeZone();
int offset = z.getRawOffset();
if(z.inDaylightTime(new Date())){
offset = offset + z.getDSTSavings();
}
int offsetHrs = offset / 1000 / 60 / 60;
int offsetMins = offset / 1000 / 60 % 60;
System.out.println("offset: " + offsetHrs);
System.out.println("offset: " + offsetMins);
c.add(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, (-offsetHrs));
c.add(Calendar.MINUTE, (-offsetMins));
System.out.println("GMT Time: "+c.getTime());

Actually not time, but it's representation could be changed.
SimpleDateFormat f = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss");
f.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
System.out.println(f.format(new Date()));
Time is the same in any point of the Earth, but our perception of time could be different depending on location.

This works for getting UTC milliseconds in Android.
Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
int utcOffset = c.get(Calendar.ZONE_OFFSET) + c.get(Calendar.DST_OFFSET);
Long utcMilliseconds = c.getTimeInMillis() + utcOffset;

Calendar aGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
Then all operations performed using the aGMTCalendar object will be done with the GMT time zone and will not have the daylight savings time or fixed offsets applied
Wrong!
Calendar aGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
aGMTCalendar.getTime(); //or getTimeInMillis()
and
Calendar aNotGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-2"));aNotGMTCalendar.getTime();
will return the same time. Idem for
new Date(); //it's not GMT.

This code prints the current time UTC.
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.TimeZone;
public class Test
{
public static void main(final String[] args) throws ParseException
{
final SimpleDateFormat f = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss z");
f.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
System.out.println(f.format(new Date()));
}
}
Result
2013-10-26 14:37:48 UTC

Here is what seems to be incorrect in Jon Skeet's answer. He said:
java.util.Date is always in UTC. What makes you think it's in local
time? I suspect the problem is that you're displaying it via an
instance of Calendar which uses the local timezone, or possibly using
Date.toString() which also uses the local timezone.
However, the code:
System.out.println(new java.util.Date().getHours() + " hours");
gives the local hours, not GMT (UTC hours), using no Calendar and no SimpleDateFormat at all.
That is why is seems something is incorrect.
Putting together the responses, the code:
System.out.println(Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"))
.get(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY) + " Hours");
shows the GMT hours instead of the local hours -- note that getTime.getHours() is missing because that would create a Date() object, which theoretically stores the date in GMT, but gives back the hours in the local time zone.

If you want a Date object with fields adjusted for UTC you can do it like this with Joda Time:
import org.joda.time.DateTimeZone;
import java.util.Date;
...
Date local = new Date();
System.out.println("Local: " + local);
DateTimeZone zone = DateTimeZone.getDefault();
long utc = zone.convertLocalToUTC(local.getTime(), false);
System.out.println("UTC: " + new Date(utc));

You can use:
Calendar aGMTCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
Then all operations performed using the aGMTCalendar object will be done with the GMT time zone and will not have the daylight savings time or fixed offsets applied. I think the previous poster is correct that the Date() object always returns a GMT it's not until you go to do something with the date object that it gets converted to the local time zone.

SimpleDateFormat dateFormatGmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
dateFormatGmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
System.out.println(dateFormatGmt.format(date));

Here is my implementation of toUTC:
public static Date toUTC(Date date){
long datems = date.getTime();
long timezoneoffset = TimeZone.getDefault().getOffset(datems);
datems -= timezoneoffset;
return new Date(datems);
}
There's probably several ways to improve it, but it works for me.

You can directly use this
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatGmt = new SimpleDateFormat("dd:MM:yyyy HH:mm:ss");
dateFormatGmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
System.out.println(dateFormatGmt.format(new Date())+"");

Here an other suggestion to get a GMT Timestamp object:
import java.sql.Timestamp;
import java.util.Calendar;
...
private static Timestamp getGMT() {
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
return new Timestamp(cal.getTimeInMillis()
-cal.get(Calendar.ZONE_OFFSET)
-cal.get(Calendar.DST_OFFSET));
}

Here is another way to get GMT time in String format
String DATE_FORMAT = "EEE, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss z" ;
final SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(DATE_FORMAT);
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
String dateTimeString = sdf.format(new Date());

With:
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
Then cal have the current date and time.
You also could get the current Date and Time for timezone with:
Calendar cal2 = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-2"));
You could ask cal.get(Calendar.DATE); or other Calendar constant about others details.
Date and Timestamp are deprecated in Java. Calendar class it isn't.

Sample code to render system time in a specific time zone and a specific format.
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.TimeZone;
public class TimZoneTest {
public static void main (String[] args){
//<GMT><+/-><hour>:<minutes>
// Any screw up in this format, timezone defaults to GMT QUIETLY. So test your format a few times.
System.out.println(my_time_in("GMT-5:00", "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss") );
System.out.println(my_time_in("GMT+5:30", "'at' HH:mm a z 'on' MM/dd/yyyy"));
System.out.println("---------------------------------------------");
// Alternate format
System.out.println(my_time_in("America/Los_Angeles", "'at' HH:mm a z 'on' MM/dd/yyyy") );
System.out.println(my_time_in("America/Buenos_Aires", "'at' HH:mm a z 'on' MM/dd/yyyy") );
}
public static String my_time_in(String target_time_zone, String format){
TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone(target_time_zone);
Date date = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
SimpleDateFormat date_format_gmt = new SimpleDateFormat(format);
date_format_gmt.setTimeZone(tz);
return date_format_gmt.format(date);
}
}
Output
10/08/2011 21:07:21
at 07:37 AM GMT+05:30 on 10/09/2011
at 19:07 PM PDT on 10/08/2011
at 23:07 PM ART on 10/08/2011

Just to make this simpler, to create a Date in UTC you can use Calendar :
Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
Which will construct a new instance for Calendar using the "UTC" TimeZone.
If you need a Date object from that calendar you could just use getTime().

Converting Current DateTime in UTC:
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'");
DateTimeZone dateTimeZone = DateTimeZone.getDefault(); //Default Time Zone
DateTime currDateTime = new DateTime(); //Current DateTime
long utcTime = dateTimeZone.convertLocalToUTC(currDateTime .getMillis(), false);
String currTime = formatter.print(utcTime); //UTC time converted to string from long in format of formatter
currDateTime = formatter.parseDateTime(currTime); //Converted to DateTime in UTC

public static void main(String args[]){
LocalDate date=LocalDate.now();
System.out.println("Current date = "+date);
}

This worked for me, returns the timestamp in GMT!
Date currDate;
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatGmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss");
dateFormatGmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatLocal = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss");
long currTime = 0;
try {
currDate = dateFormatLocal.parse( dateFormatGmt.format(new Date()) );
currTime = currDate.getTime();
} catch (ParseException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}

The Simple Function that you can use:
Edit: this version uses the modern java.time classes.
private static final DateTimeFormatter FORMATTER
= DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd-MM-uuuu HH:mm:ss z");
public static String getUtcDateTime() {
return ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId.of("Etc/UTC")).format(FORMATTER);
}
Return value from the method:
26-03-2022 17:38:55 UTC
Original function:
public String getUTC_DateTime() {
SimpleDateFormat dateTimeFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss z");
dateTimeFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));//gmt
return dateTimeFormat.format(new Date());
}
return of above function:
26-03-2022 08:07:21 UTC

To put it simple. A calendar object stores information about time zone but when you perform cal.getTime() then the timezone information will be lost. So for Timezone conversions I will advice to use DateFormat classes...

this is my implementation:
public static String GetCurrentTimeStamp()
{
Calendar cal=Calendar.getInstance();
long offset = cal.getTimeZone().getOffset(System.currentTimeMillis());//if you want in UTC else remove it .
return new java.sql.Timestamp(System.currentTimeMillis()+offset).toString();
}

Use this Class to get ever the right UTC Time from a Online NTP Server:
import java.net.DatagramPacket;
import java.net.DatagramSocket;
import java.net.InetAddress;
class NTP_UTC_Time
{
private static final String TAG = "SntpClient";
private static final int RECEIVE_TIME_OFFSET = 32;
private static final int TRANSMIT_TIME_OFFSET = 40;
private static final int NTP_PACKET_SIZE = 48;
private static final int NTP_PORT = 123;
private static final int NTP_MODE_CLIENT = 3;
private static final int NTP_VERSION = 3;
// Number of seconds between Jan 1, 1900 and Jan 1, 1970
// 70 years plus 17 leap days
private static final long OFFSET_1900_TO_1970 = ((365L * 70L) + 17L) * 24L * 60L * 60L;
private long mNtpTime;
public boolean requestTime(String host, int timeout) {
try {
DatagramSocket socket = new DatagramSocket();
socket.setSoTimeout(timeout);
InetAddress address = InetAddress.getByName(host);
byte[] buffer = new byte[NTP_PACKET_SIZE];
DatagramPacket request = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length, address, NTP_PORT);
buffer[0] = NTP_MODE_CLIENT | (NTP_VERSION << 3);
writeTimeStamp(buffer, TRANSMIT_TIME_OFFSET);
socket.send(request);
// read the response
DatagramPacket response = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length);
socket.receive(response);
socket.close();
mNtpTime = readTimeStamp(buffer, RECEIVE_TIME_OFFSET);
} catch (Exception e) {
// if (Config.LOGD) Log.d(TAG, "request time failed: " + e);
return false;
}
return true;
}
public long getNtpTime() {
return mNtpTime;
}
/**
* Reads an unsigned 32 bit big endian number from the given offset in the buffer.
*/
private long read32(byte[] buffer, int offset) {
byte b0 = buffer[offset];
byte b1 = buffer[offset+1];
byte b2 = buffer[offset+2];
byte b3 = buffer[offset+3];
// convert signed bytes to unsigned values
int i0 = ((b0 & 0x80) == 0x80 ? (b0 & 0x7F) + 0x80 : b0);
int i1 = ((b1 & 0x80) == 0x80 ? (b1 & 0x7F) + 0x80 : b1);
int i2 = ((b2 & 0x80) == 0x80 ? (b2 & 0x7F) + 0x80 : b2);
int i3 = ((b3 & 0x80) == 0x80 ? (b3 & 0x7F) + 0x80 : b3);
return ((long)i0 << 24) + ((long)i1 << 16) + ((long)i2 << 8) + (long)i3;
}
/**
* Reads the NTP time stamp at the given offset in the buffer and returns
* it as a system time (milliseconds since January 1, 1970).
*/
private long readTimeStamp(byte[] buffer, int offset) {
long seconds = read32(buffer, offset);
long fraction = read32(buffer, offset + 4);
return ((seconds - OFFSET_1900_TO_1970) * 1000) + ((fraction * 1000L) / 0x100000000L);
}
/**
* Writes 0 as NTP starttime stamp in the buffer. --> Then NTP returns Time OFFSET since 1900
*/
private void writeTimeStamp(byte[] buffer, int offset) {
int ofs = offset++;
for (int i=ofs;i<(ofs+8);i++)
buffer[i] = (byte)(0);
}
}
And use it with:
long now = 0;
NTP_UTC_Time client = new NTP_UTC_Time();
if (client.requestTime("pool.ntp.org", 2000)) {
now = client.getNtpTime();
}
If you need UTC Time "now" as DateTimeString use function:
private String get_UTC_Datetime_from_timestamp(long timeStamp){
try{
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
TimeZone tz = cal.getTimeZone();
int tzt = tz.getOffset(System.currentTimeMillis());
timeStamp -= tzt;
// DateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss",Locale.getDefault());
DateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat();
Date netDate = (new Date(timeStamp));
return sdf.format(netDate);
}
catch(Exception ex){
return "";
}
}
and use it with:
String UTC_DateTime = get_UTC_Datetime_from_timestamp(now);

If you want to avoid parsing the date and just want a timestamp in GMT, you could use:
final Date gmt = new Timestamp(System.currentTimeMillis()
- Calendar.getInstance().getTimeZone()
.getOffset(System.currentTimeMillis()));

public class CurrentUtcDate
{
public static void main(String[] args) {
Date date = new Date();
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss");
dateFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
System.out.println("UTC Time is: " + dateFormat.format(date));
}
}
Output:
UTC Time is: 22-01-2018 13:14:35
You can change the date format as needed.

Current date in the UTC
Instant.now().toString().replaceAll("T.*", "");