title: Before writing a Java Date to an SQL TIMESTAMP column, does JDBC translate the date from the JVM time zone to the database session time zone?
body: <p>Before writing a Java <a href="http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Date.html" rel="noreferrer">Date</a> to an SQL <a href="http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/interactive/datatype-datetime.html" rel="noreferrer">TIMESTAMP</a> column, does <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Database_Connectivity" rel="noreferrer">JDBC</a> translate the date from the Java virtual machine time zone to that of the database session?</p>
  
  <p>For example, suppose the Java virtual machine time zone is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTC%C2%B10" rel="noreferrer">UTC</a> and the database session time zone is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTC%E2%88%9205:00" rel="noreferrer">UTC-5</a>.  If a Java program attempts to store <code>2000-01-01 00:00:00</code> by passing it to <a href="http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/sql/PreparedStatement.html#setTimestamp(int,%20java.sql.Timestamp)" rel="noreferrer"><code>PreparedStatement#setTimestamp(int, Timestamp)</code></a>, according to the JDBC standard, will the database store <code>TIMESTAMP '2000-01-01 00:00:00'</code> or <code>TIMESTAMP '1999-12-31 19:00:00'</code>?</p>