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How to change time zone in calendar without changing my time format in java?

I have a problem in java. I have a calendar in my java program and I want to set time zone to my local time zone.
I was able do do this and it works very well. My problem is when I change time zone in calendar time format in calendar change to 12H from 24H and i don't want this!
my question is How to change time zone in calendar without changing my time format in java?
this is my code for time zone change :
public static Calendar setTimeZoneToTehran(Calendar calendar) {
TimeZone timeZoneOfTehran = TimeZone.getTimeZone("Asia/Tehran");
calendar.setTimeZone(timeZoneOfTehran);
return calendar;
}

Just a quick thought, in case you are using time format to read/parse purpose you can use SimpleDateFormat to the desired format.
Date date = calendar.getTime();
System.out.println(format.format(date));

As #devilpreet already said, formatting in Calendar is only additional, bonus feature. This class is designed to keep info about date and time, formatting of date is encapuslated in SimpleDateFormat class.
Moreover, consider using Joda Time or java.time(from Java 8) instead of java.util.Calendar(in some circles using java.util.Calendar and Date is considered a bad practice).

Ignoring DST when using Java Calendars

I have a GUI that plots time-series graphs. The user enters the dates they want to plot from and to by entering values in text boxes. For example, if they enter 25/07/13 22:00 and 26/07/13 00:00 the graph should plot data from 22:00:00 on the 25th through to 00:00:59 the following morning. The times the user enters are parsed into a Calendar object.
My problem comes with DST.
The user doesn't care about DST, so all they want to see is a graph between those two times. However, the Calendar objects do care about DST and so my "to" date is currently not 00:00, but 01:00. (I am in London and we are currently GMT + 1 hour for DST).
I want to effectively ignore DST and act as though everything is GMT + 0 when I want to plot graphs.
How can I do this?

Thanks for the answers guys, they helped me get my head around the problem. It sort of comes down to the fact that I use both the Calendar object, for presentation and storage of data, and the epoch for temporal calculations.
It turns out that the Calendar set() methods will take into account DST as a matter of course. So when I parse the time values in the text boxes that the user enters, and use set() for each individual Calendar field, the Calendar object will know, based-off historical data, whether the date you've just set will have DST applied. Because of this, it understands that you meant, for example, GMT+1, even if you didn't realise it (because, frankly, who does?!).
However, when you do getTimeInMillis(), the epoch returned has no concept of time zones or DST, so to match with the current time zone you have to apply DST manually to the returned epoch, if it applies. Conversely, when you use setTimeInMillis() on a Calendar object, it is assumed that the time you entered is GMT+0, but if the epoch is a date that currently has DST applied, the Calendar object will add it on for you, meaning you're +1 hour from where you thought you were. To solve this problem, you need to subtract DST, again if necessary, from the epoch before setting it in the calendar.
All of this confusion is particularly important on day boundaries, especially if you're using day resolution for anything, like me.

Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.set(calendar.DST_OFFSET, 0);

If I understand you correctly you need to parse 25/07/13 22:00 as GMT date/time:
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yy HH:mm");
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
Date date = sdf.parse("25/07/13 22:00");
and make a Calendar based on this date
Calendar c= Calendar.getInstance();
c.setTime(date);

TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone("Etc/GMT0");
DateFormat df = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance();
df.setTimeZone(tz);
System.out.println(df.format(new Date()));

java Date conversion confusion regarding timezones

I'm using Java 6. Our servers are on Eastern Standard Time (GMT-5), and I'm trying to store a value that should be interpreted as such but I'm confused about how to convert it. I have
String dateStr = "1368921600000"; // This is 5/19/2013 00:00:00
final Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-5"));
cal.setTimeInMillis(Long.parseLong(dateStr));
final java.util.Date dateObj = cal.getTime();
System.out.println(dateObj.toString());
but right now this prints out "Sat May 18 19:00:00 CDT 2013" (since my local machine is on CDT) but I want the result to be "Sat May 18 24:00:00 CDT 2013". How can i interpret the date string "1368921600000" as an EST date? Thanks, - Dave

1368921600000 is an instant in time, the same instant, everywhere in the world. To convert this to a date and time, you have to specify where in the world you want to know the date/time at that instant. It just so happens that the timestamp is relative to UTC, and is Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT.
If you want the time of this instant (the same instant) somewhere else in the world, you can use the Calendar as you did and extract the individual field values (e.g. HOUR_OF_DAY). If all you care about is getting a text string, you use a DateFormat instance such as SimpleDateFormat:
DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss z");
df.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("America/New_York"));
String timeOnUSEastCoast = df.format(new Date(1368921600000L));
// will be GMT-5 or GMT-4 depending on DST
In this example, the output would be GMT-4: Sat, 18 May 2013 20:00:00 EDT (not only has the hour changed, but it's still the previous day on the US east coast).
If you want to output the UTC time but just want to pretend it's EST then it's just easier to tell the DateFormat to leave off the time zone field (remove the "z") in the text output and call it whatever you want, but understand that the timestamp value is always UTC.

It is often not necessary to use the Joda Time library to get historically accurate time-zone- and daylight-savings-aware local time mappings, although this is the common go to response for many.
If you have a database of timestamps that require local time conversion, then here are some principles that have served me well:
Store date/times (Instants, in the parlance of Joda; Dates, in the parlance of the Java Calendar API) in UTC time. UTC does not care about DST. It does not care about time zones. UTC simply represents a universally representable moment in time. This step alone can save a lot of date/time headaches.
Database records should contain TimeZone and/or Locale fields so that mapping from UTC can be performed. Think about your data. Every timestamp in your database does not need time zone information associated with it. Instead, associate the time zone data with a part of your data model that provides appropriate granularity. If your app will only ever be localized in one time zone, then you needn't store this infor at all. In my recent project, I created a Locale table that contains the TZ ID for timestamps in my Encounters table. All other timestamps are subordinate to these records, so it made sense to associate it there.
Use the Java API GregorianCalendar to map UTC Dates to local time. And that's all I ever use it for. I almost never use GregorianCalendars to do date arithmetic or other date operations. Here is the paradigm that I've been working with:
public static void main(String[] args) {
m_GregorianCalendar = new GregorianCalendar(TimeZone.getTimeZone(
"America/Chicago"));
Date d = new Date();
String fmt = "dd-MMM-yyyy # HH:mm";
:
:
String myDate = mapToLocalTime(d, fmt, gc);
:
:
}
public String mapToLocalTime(Date utc, String format, GregorianCalendar gc) {
gc.setTime(utc); // this calendar is already timezone aware (constructed
// with time zone id (DST too))
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat();
sdf.setCalendar(gc); // formatter uses conventions of calendar
sdf.applyPattern(fmt); // pattern for formatter
return sdf.format(utc);
}
Consider representing timestamps internally in a numeric format (longs, doubles). This greatly simplifies date comparisons and date arithmetic. The only downside is that conversions must be done to format the data into a human recognizable form, but if you use functions for these conversions it need not be a big deal at all.

Use either a new java.util.SimpleDateFormat(format) or java.util.DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance(int,int), then use #setTimeZone(timezone).

When you're printing Date.toString(), the Calendar's time zone is not taken into consideration at all. After you do a cal.getTime(), whatever was set in Calendar is no longer relevant.
What is is TimeZone's default time zone.
So right before printing the date, set the default time zone to the one you want to print in, e.g.:
String dateStr = "1368921600000"; // This is 5/19/2013 00:00:00
final Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
TimeZone gmtZero = TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT");
cal.setTimeInMillis(Long.parseLong(dateStr));
final java.util.Date dateObj = cal.getTime();
TimeZone.setDefault(gmtZero);
System.out.println(dateObj.toString());
This will print the date in GMT regardless of your system time zone.
Just remember to bring back the original default TimeZone afterwards!

Display UTC date/time into date/time according to the current timezone

I am getting a date/time string from web in the format of "yyyy/mm/dd'T'HH:MM:SS'Z'" and it is in UTC.
Now I have to identify the current time zone of device and then convert this time to my local time..
How do I do it?
(FYI, Currently, UTC time is 10:25 AM, in India current time is 3:55 PM)

Try using TimeZone.getDefault() instead of TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT")
From the docs:
... you get a TimeZone using
getDefault which creates a TimeZone
based on the time zone where the
program is running.
EDIT: You can parse date using SimpleDateFormat (there is also the documentation on the format string there). In your case, you want to do (untested):
// note that I modified the format string slightly
SimpleDateFormat fmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'");
// set the timezone to the original date string's timezone
fmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
Date date = fmt.parse("1998/12/21T13:29:31Z", new ParsePosition(0));
// then reset to the target date string's (local) timezone
fmt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getDefault());
String localTime = fmt.format(date);
alternatively, use two separate instances of SimpleDateFormat, one for original and one for target time.

How to make Date locale-independent?

I have a db, that stores dates in OleDateTime format, in GMT timezone. I've implemented a class, extending Date in java to represent that in classic date format. But my class is locale-dependent (I'm in GMT+2). Therefore, it converts the date in the db as date - 2 hours. How do I make it convert the date correctly? I want my class to be locale-independent, always using GMT timezone. Actually, the question is:
class MyOleDateTime extends Date {
static {
Locale.setDefault(WhatGoesHere?)
}
// ... some constructors
// ... some methods
}

Well, it's better to use the Calendar object like suggested in other answers. However, if you really want to set global timezone, you can use TimeZone.setDefault(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC")); early in your application code. There is also user.timezone Java system property.
Also (just fun to know), it appears that the only country actually living by GMT/UTC time (without daylight saving changes) is Liberia.
In fact, Date objects per se are always locale- and timezone-independent. Its getTime() method will always return the number of milliseconds passed since January 1, 1970 00:00:00 (not counting leap seconds) in UTC. But if you want to get something else than milliseconds, you have to use Calendar, which is timezone-dependent. But it is the right way to go. You don't use that deprecated methods in Date class, do you?

As Michael Borgwardt has already said, the Java Date object does not know anything about timezones. It's just a wrapper for a number of milliseconds since 01-01-1970 00:00:00 UTC.
You start dealing with timezones only when you for example convert the Date object to a String using a DateFormat. You set the timezone on the DateFormat to specify in which timezone you want to see the Date.
DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss Z");
df.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
String text = df.format(date); // text will contain date represented in UTC

A Date is locale-independent, always using GMT timezone. It's just a wrapper around a millisecond timestamp in GMT (more correctly: UTC).
The only things in Date that are timezone dependant are the deprecated methods like getDay() - that's why they're deprecated. Those use the default time zone. The correct thing to do is to avoid using those deprecated methods - not to set the default timezone to UTC! That could cause problems elsewhere, and you can't prevent other parts of the code from setting the default timezone to something else.

Use a Calendar object:
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"),
locale);

Here's a snippet I used to calculate the GMT offset from the Calendar instance and format it. I appreciate all the help I've gotten from this site, its nice to contribute. I hope this helps someone somewhere. Enjoy.
Calendar calInst = Calendar.getInstance();
//calculate the offset to keep calendar instance GMT
int gmtOffsetMilli = calInst.get(Calendar.ZONE_OFFSET);
long gmtOffsetHr = TimeUnit.HOURS.convert(gmtOffsetMilli, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
calInst = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT " + gmtOffsetHr));