TimeZone based on location

Question

I have the following code:

            mSavedTime = new Time();//????Always returns America/New York
        double latitude = 40.09596;
        double longitude = -74.22213;
        double elevation = 0;
        TimeZone timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone(mSavedTime.timezone);

My first question is: how do I get elevation information for a certain lat\lon combination? My second question is: how do I get timeZone string for a certain lon\lan combination? The above code will provide the timezone string from where my clock on the cell phone is set (returns America/New York). I want to get string according to the lat\lon setup by me.

Answer 1

Another option is to use llttz library which is the port of APTimeZones project for Android devices. The usage is simple:

IConverter iconv = Converter.getInstance(TimeZoneListStore.class);
TimeZone tz = iconv.getTimeZone(53.5233333, 49.4125);

Library is very small and doesn't require Internet connection. The drawback is that the calculation sometimes isn't precise which is due to the way I calculate the TimeZone. More info on this can be found here.

Answer 2

Try this code for use Google Time Zone API:

 private String get_UTC_Datetime_from_timestamp(long timeStamp){

    try{

        Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
        TimeZone tz = cal.getTimeZone();

        int tzt = tz.getOffset(System.currentTimeMillis());

        timeStamp -= tzt;

        // DateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss",Locale.getDefault());
        DateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat();
        Date netDate = (new Date(timeStamp));
        return sdf.format(netDate);
    }
    catch(Exception ex){
        return "";
     }
    } 

 class NTP_UTC_Time
 {
     private static final String TAG = "SntpClient";

     private static final int RECEIVE_TIME_OFFSET = 32;
     private static final int TRANSMIT_TIME_OFFSET = 40;
     private static final int NTP_PACKET_SIZE = 48;

     private static final int NTP_PORT = 123;
     private static final int NTP_MODE_CLIENT = 3;
     private static final int NTP_VERSION = 3;

     // Number of seconds between Jan 1, 1900 and Jan 1, 1970
     // 70 years plus 17 leap days
     private static final long OFFSET_1900_TO_1970 = ((365L * 70L) + 17L) * 24L * 60L * 60L;

     private long mNtpTime;

     public boolean requestTime(String host, int timeout) {
         try {
             DatagramSocket socket = new DatagramSocket();
             socket.setSoTimeout(timeout);
             InetAddress address = InetAddress.getByName(host);
             byte[] buffer = new byte[NTP_PACKET_SIZE];
             DatagramPacket request = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length, address, NTP_PORT);

             buffer[0] = NTP_MODE_CLIENT | (NTP_VERSION << 3);

             writeTimeStamp(buffer, TRANSMIT_TIME_OFFSET);

             socket.send(request);

             // read the response
             DatagramPacket response = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length);
             socket.receive(response);          
             socket.close();

             mNtpTime = readTimeStamp(buffer, RECEIVE_TIME_OFFSET);            
         } catch (Exception e) {
           //  if (Config.LOGD) Log.d(TAG, "request time failed: " + e);
             return false;
         }

         return true;
     }


     public long getNtpTime() {
         return mNtpTime;
     }


     /**
      * Reads an unsigned 32 bit big endian number from the given offset in the buffer.
      */
     private long read32(byte[] buffer, int offset) {
         byte b0 = buffer[offset];
         byte b1 = buffer[offset+1];
         byte b2 = buffer[offset+2];
         byte b3 = buffer[offset+3];

         // convert signed bytes to unsigned values
         int i0 = ((b0 & 0x80) == 0x80 ? (b0 & 0x7F) + 0x80 : b0);
         int i1 = ((b1 & 0x80) == 0x80 ? (b1 & 0x7F) + 0x80 : b1);
         int i2 = ((b2 & 0x80) == 0x80 ? (b2 & 0x7F) + 0x80 : b2);
         int i3 = ((b3 & 0x80) == 0x80 ? (b3 & 0x7F) + 0x80 : b3);

         return ((long)i0 << 24) + ((long)i1 << 16) + ((long)i2 << 8) + (long)i3;
     }

     /**
      * Reads the NTP time stamp at the given offset in the buffer and returns 
      * it as a system time (milliseconds since January 1, 1970).
      */    
     private long readTimeStamp(byte[] buffer, int offset) {
         long seconds = read32(buffer, offset);
         long fraction = read32(buffer, offset + 4);
         return ((seconds - OFFSET_1900_TO_1970) * 1000) + ((fraction * 1000L) / 0x100000000L);        
     }

     /**
      * Writes 0 as NTP starttime stamp in the buffer. --> Then NTP returns Time OFFSET since 1900
      */    
     private void writeTimeStamp(byte[] buffer, int offset) {        
         int ofs =  offset++;

         for (int i=ofs;i<(ofs+8);i++)
           buffer[i] = (byte)(0);             
     }

 }

 String get_time_zone_time(GeoPoint gp){

        String erg = "";
        String raw_offset = "";
        String dst_offset = "";

        double Longitude = gp.getLongitudeE6()/1E6;
        double Latitude = gp.getLatitudeE6()/1E6;

        // String request = "http://ws.geonames.org/timezone?lat="+Latitude+"&lng="+ Longitude+ "&style=full";


        long tsLong = 0; // System.currentTimeMillis()/1000;

        NTP_UTC_Time client = new NTP_UTC_Time();

        if (client.requestTime("pool.ntp.org", 2000)) {              
          tsLong = client.getNtpTime();
        }

        if (tsLong != 0)
        {

        tsLong = tsLong  / 1000;

        // https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/timezone/xml?location=39.6034810,-119.6822510&timestamp=1331161200&sensor=true

        String request = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/timezone/xml?location="+Latitude+","+ Longitude+ "&timestamp="+tsLong +"&sensor=true";

        String xmltext = get_xml_server_reponse(request);

        if(xmltext.compareTo("")!= 0)
        {

         int startpos = xmltext.indexOf("<TimeZoneResponse");
         xmltext = xmltext.substring(startpos);



        XmlPullParser parser;
        try {
            parser = XmlPullParserFactory.newInstance().newPullParser();


             parser.setInput(new StringReader (xmltext));

             int eventType = parser.getEventType();  

             String tagName = "";


             while(eventType != XmlPullParser.END_DOCUMENT) {
                 switch(eventType) {

                     case XmlPullParser.START_TAG:

                           tagName = parser.getName();

                         break;


                     case XmlPullParser.TEXT :


                        if  (tagName.equalsIgnoreCase("raw_offset"))
                          if(raw_offset.compareTo("")== 0)                               
                            raw_offset = parser.getText();  

                        if  (tagName.equalsIgnoreCase("dst_offset"))
                          if(dst_offset.compareTo("")== 0)
                            dst_offset = parser.getText();  


                        break;   

                 }

                 try {
                        eventType = parser.next();
                    } catch (IOException e) {

                        e.printStackTrace();
                    }

                }

                } catch (XmlPullParserException e) {

                    e.printStackTrace();
                    erg += e.toString();
                }

        }      

        int ro = 0;
        if(raw_offset.compareTo("")!= 0)
        { 
            float rof = str_to_float(raw_offset);
            ro = (int)rof;
        }

        int dof = 0;
        if(dst_offset.compareTo("")!= 0)
        { 
            float doff = str_to_float(dst_offset);
            dof = (int)doff;
        }

        tsLong = (tsLong + ro + dof) * 1000;



        erg = get_UTC_Datetime_from_timestamp(tsLong);
        }


  return erg;

}

And use it with:

GeoPoint gp = new GeoPoint(39.6034810,-119.6822510);
String Current_TimeZone_Time = get_time_zone_time(gp);