Re: different timezones causing chaos with rmi

From:

"Karl Uppiano" <karl.uppiano@verizon.net>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 05:26:43 GMT

Message-ID:

<nKWXh.2554$Wa.2250@trnddc08>

"epicwinter" <epicwinter@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1177437030.190834.169200@n15g2000prd.googlegroups.com...

On Apr 23, 11:09 pm, Gordon Beaton <n...@for.email> wrote:

On 23 Apr 2007 17:48:51 -0700, epicwinter wrote:

I am working on an application deployed in an ASP model using rmi
with a swing client. I have been running into some problems with
dates when the client is on a different timezone than the server.

Always represent times internally using UTC. Use the local timezone
only for "user" input and output, converting as close to the user as
possible.

/gordon

--

Gordon thanks for responding. But my question is how would you
suggest implementing your solution. I use dates all over the software
so I am hoping not to have to write some code every time i work with a
date.

I am not so much concerned about handling issues when users have bad
clocks, that would certainly be nice, but at this point I just want it
to work when the clocks are accurate.

You should only convert to and from local time at the client UI. Everything
should be UTC (as long milliseconds) internally - that's what you should be
sending over RMI. Most of Java's time and calendar conversion routines work
that way. If you work with them as they were designed, it is almost a non
issue. But the timezones do need to be set correctly on all machines.