How to get the current time in UTC, add some minutes to it and the convert it to a specified format in Kotlin

Question

I found different topics on this subject but couldn't find a proper solution to my problem yet. How can I get the current UTC time, add for example 60 minutes to it, and the display it in this format: HH:mm:ss ? Is it possible? Thanks

I used this to get the UTC time, but I don't know how to add minutes to it and the change the format to display:

val df: DateFormat = DateFormat.getTimeInstance()
df.timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone("utc")
val utcTime: String = df.format(Date())

I also tried this function but it displays the current time from the device:

fun getDate(milliSeconds: Long, dateFormat: String?): String? {
    val formatter = SimpleDateFormat(dateFormat)
    val calendar = Calendar.getInstance()
    calendar.timeInMillis = milliSeconds
    return formatter.format(calendar.time)
}

I recommend you don’t use `DateFormat`, `SimpleDateFormat` and `Calendar`. Those classes are poorly designed and long outdated, the first two in particular notoriously troublesome. Instead use `OffsetDateTime` and `DateTimeFormatter`, both from [java.time, the modern Java date and time API](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/datetime/). — Ole V.V., Jun 05 '21 at 10:24

deHaar · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-04T09:01:58.997

7

Use java.time here, you can get the current time of a specific offset or even time zone and output it afterwards using the desired pattern:

import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter
import java.time.ZoneOffset
import java.time.OffsetDateTime

fun main() {
    val dateTime = getDateTimeFormatted(50, "HH:mm:ss")
    println(dateTime)
}

fun getDateTimeFormatted(minutesToAdd: Long, pattern: String): String {
    // get current time in UTC, no millis needed
    val nowInUtc = OffsetDateTime.now(ZoneOffset.UTC)
    // add some minutes to it
    val someMinutesLater = nowInUtc.plusMinutes(minutesToAdd)
    // return the result in the given pattern
    return someMinutesLater.format(
        DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern(pattern)
    )
}

The output of an execution some seconds before posting this was:

09:43:00

If you are supporting older API versions than 26, you might find out Java 8 features are not directly available there.
You can use them anyway, just read the answers to this question, the most recent way is API Desugaring

edited Jun 04 '21 at 09:01

answered Jun 04 '21 at 08:54

deHaar

17,687
10
38
51

I'm getting this error: Failed resolution of: Ljava/time/ZoneOffset;. I think it is related to the version of Android – Razvan22 Jun 04 '21 at 09:02
@Razvan22 Have you imported the classes? Could be related to the Android API version, yes... That's a thing you have to fix yourself, I'm afraid... Check my edit, especially the links posted at the bottom of the answer. – deHaar Jun 04 '21 at 09:04
1

Yes, I did. I'm supporting older API versions than 26, maybe that's the problem. – Razvan22 Jun 04 '21 at 09:06
@Razvan22 Yes, that is the problem. Will be totally worth it to put effort in making your project ready for Java 8. – deHaar Jun 04 '21 at 09:09

score -3 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 04 '21 at 08:43

-3

var dateformat  = SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss")
dateformat.timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC")
var date = Date()
date.hours = date.hours +2
date.minutes = date.minutes + 30
Log.e("date",dateformat.format(date))

answered Jun 04 '21 at 08:43

PRATEEK BHARDWAJ

2,364
2
21
35

How to get the current time in UTC, add some minutes to it and the convert it to a specified format in Kotlin

2 Answers2