dateFormat doesn't contain the parsed date

Question

Here is what I am doing :

SimpleDateFormat parserSDF = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzzz yyyy", Locale.ENGLISH);
Date dateFormat = parserSDF.parse("Mon Nov 07 00:00:00 CEST 2016");

dateFormat should then contain Mon Nov 07 00:00:00 CET 2016, but here is what I get when logging it :

Sun Nov 06 23:00:00 CET 2016

Why do I get this hour of difference?

Thank you.

Answer 1

CEST stands for Central European Summer Time, which is the same as CET but with daylight saving time into effect. Use CET, like:

Date dateFormat = parserSDF.parse("Mon Nov 07 00:00:00 CET 2016");

Answer 2

CEST stands for Central European Summer Time which is 1 hour after CET, so result is correct.

So if you go with:

Date dateFormat = parserSDF.parse("Mon Nov 07 00:00:00 CET 2016");

you'll get expected result.

Answer 3

CEST = Central European Summer Time

Summer time is +1 hour to normal CET. In November Summer time usually isn't used.

Answer 4

the issue is probably a timezone issue:

SimpleDateFormat parserSDF = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzzz yyyy", Locale.ENGLISH);
parserSDF.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
Date dateFormat = parserSDF.parse("Mon Nov 07 00:00:00 CEST 2016");

Set the timezone as shown above. The issue has been resolved here: Java SimpleDateFormat: an hour wrong