title: Process ISO8601 timestamps with offsets in Pentaho Data Integration
body: <p>In Pentaho's Data Integration (aka PDI and Kettle), I'd like to do some processing on dates and times that are in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601" rel="nofollow">ISO 8601</a> format and have <del>timezone</del> offset information. For example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>2013-07-26T18:00:00-07:00
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>As of this writing, it's known that <a href="http://jira.pentaho.com/browse/PDI-9887" rel="nofollow">Kettle does not understand this date format</a> (despite its standardization <a href="http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=15903" rel="nofollow">26</a> years ago and at least one subsequent <a href="http://xkcd.com/1179/" rel="nofollow">PSA</a>).</p>
  
  <p>How can I operate on this data without resorting to string parsing?</p>