Jodatime get milliseconds with offset - timezone

Question

New to JodaTime library, i would like to get a DateTime's milliseconds field with the specified TimeZone's offset.
So far my attempt is:
private DateTimeZone timeZone = DateTimeZone.forID("Europe/Amsterdam");
private long now=new DateTime().withZone(timeZone).getMillis();
But i always get the UTC millis, the timezone offset isnt applied,
Is there any way to apply the timezone's offset to the DateTime object?
Thx!

Answer 1

First: What do you intend to do with these "local" millis? What do you really try to achieve? Normally only UTC-millis are needed.
Anyway, remember the general timezone offset definition which is:
UTC + Offset = Local Time
Then the solution is simple:
DateTimeZone tz = DateTimeZone.forID("Europe/Amsterdam");
long nowUTC = new DateTime().withZone(tz).getMillis();
long nowLocal = nowUTC + tz.getOffset(nowUTC);
But once again: What is your use-case for "local" millis? They are not even related to UNIX epoch any longer because the UTC-link is cut off.
About your last question ("Is there any way to apply the timezone's offset to the DateTime object?"):
Your DateTime-object already has got a timezone, namely "Europe/Amsterdam". It is internally used to compute the field tuple representation once you have a global UTC-timestamp expressed as millis since UNIX epoch. No need to apply an extra offset on DateTime. It is already there.

Answer 2

JodaTime is using machine time inside. So to find miliseconds, you can use a constant storing LocalDateTime referring to Jan 1, 1970(Because of UNIX Time).
Unix time, or POSIX time, is a system for describing points in time,
defined as the number of seconds elapsed since midnight proleptic
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of January 1, 1970, not counting leap
seconds.
Then calculate the difference between your DateTime.
I tried like this;
public static void main(String[] args) {
final LocalDateTime JAN_1_1970 = new LocalDateTime(1970, 1, 1, 0, 0);
DateTime local = new DateTime().withZone(DateTimeZone.forID("Europe/Amsterdam"));
DateTime utc = new DateTime(DateTimeZone.UTC);
System.out.println("Europe/Amsterdam milis :" + new Duration(JAN_1_1970.toDateTime(DateTimeZone.forID("Europe/Amsterdam")), local).getMillis());
System.out.println("UTC milis :" + new Duration(JAN_1_1970.toDateTime(DateTimeZone.UTC), utc).getMillis());
}
And the result is;
Europe/Amsterdam milis :1429695646528
UTC milis :1429692046534
And #leonbloy write here a good comment.
Your local and utc represent the same instants of time, (only with
different timezones attached). Hence, getMillis() (which gives the
"physical" time interval elapsed from the "instant" corresponding to
the unix epoch), must return the same value.
I will also look for better solution with no constant.