Paulo Caroli

The java.util.TimeZone abstract class that represents a time zone is used to produce local time for a particular global time zone. A TimeZone comprises three basic pieces of information: an ID, a time zone offset, and the logic necessary to deal with DST (Daylight Savings Time). While working with the TimeZone class provided with JRE 1.3 and 1.4, however, I discovered that it provides erroneous times for several time zones. This article describes this DST transition date problem, presents TimeZone test scenarios, and introduces TimeZonePatch. This patch is a flexible solution that enables the java.util.TimeZone to produce correct time zone data. TimeZone Problem I encountered the problem while working in a Java application that delivers Short Message Service (SMS) to wireless devices. The company's SMS application was being used in several countries and users were reg... (more)