TimeZone.setDefault for a thread in Java 8

Question

We currently use TimeZone.setDefault to set the default timezone for a thread. I know that with Java 8 calling this method sets the default timezone for the JVM.

Does anyone have suggestions about how to set the default timezone for a thread in Java 8 without having to rework a lot of code?

Thanks,

Ken

Answer 1

Don't use the system defaulting at all. Use ThreadLocal<T> : either a ThreadLocal<TimeZone> , or better, a ThreadLocal<ZoneId> with the java.time classes. Then you can fetch from there everywhere that you need the default.

Personally I'd try to avoid using a thread local at all, and pass around the context explicitly - or if you do want to have context implicitly, encapsulate all the context (eg for a web request) in an appropriate context type, rather than having separate thread locals for time zone, locale etc.