JDBC/MySQL: Save timestamp always using UTC

Question

I would like to save a timestamp to the database without being converted to the local timezone by the jdbc driver. Currently only MySQL and PostgreSQL are important for me b

Answer 1

Date and Timestamp in Java are timezone-agnostic. The new Timestamp(0) indeed corresponds to the the 1970-01-01 00:00:00 in UTC. You have to use SimpleDateFormat and set the desired timezone on it to visually inspect your dates. Subtracting a long constant from a timestamp to make it look "right" when printed out using System.out.println is very wrong.

When using a database, you have a choice of data types for date/time/timestamp. Some of them support time zone information and some - don't. If you choose to use time zone handling in your database, you have to learn it in details. If you want to bypass it, you have an option to store dates/times/timestamps in the database as strings and do all formatting in your Java code.