Hello, I am working with JamVM 1.5.2 + Classpath 0.98 in Linux on an ARM cpu. I'm working in the US Mountain time zone (GMT minus 6 hours). I see the following in Jython (which is just a convenient test environment, I get the same incorrect result when running a Java program by itself). # jamvm -jar /mnt/mmc/var/lib/jython.jar Jython 2.2.1 on java1.5.0 >>> import java.text.SimpleDateFormat >>> java.text.SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ").parse("2009-04-14T20:18:10") Tue Apr 14 01:18:10 GMT-06:00 2009 Since the string has no timezone indication, the parse method should fail. Instead it succeeds, and returns a spurious value. In the same Jython session, when the string has a timezone indication, >>> java.text.SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ").parse("2009-04-14T20:18:10-0600") Tue Apr 14 20:18:10 GMT-06:00 2009 which is correct. I didn't look at the SimpleDateFormat.parse code to see what might be the problem. FWIW Robert Dodier PS. Here's what I get with Sun's JDK (x86 Linux). $ java -jar `locate jython.jar` Jython 2.2.1 on java1.6.0_06 Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import java.text.SimpleDateFormat >>> java.text.SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ").parse("2009-04-14T20:18:10") Traceback (innermost last): File "<console>", line 1, in ? at java.text.DateFormat.parse(DateFormat.java:337) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) java.text.ParseException: java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "2009-04-14T20:18:10" >>> java.text.SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ").parse("2009-04-14T20:18:10-0600") Tue Apr 14 20:18:10 MDT 2009