Date parsing error while formating a custom Date

Question

I want to convert this date "Sat, 16 Nov 2013 20:09:07" to unixtime

my code

SimpleDateFormat pattern = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE, dd MM yyyy HH:mm:ss");
Date date = pattern.parse("Sat, 16 Nov 2013 20:09:07")
long milliseconds = date.getTime();

i got this exception

 java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "Sat, 16 Nov 2013 20:09:07"
 (at offset 8)
at java.text.DateFormat.parse(DateFormat.java:555)

is there a problem with the pattern ??

Answer 1

Yes - you're using MM which is a numeric month pattern. You want MMM instead, as that's "abbreviated month name". I'd also suggest explicitly specifying Locale.US in the SimpleDateFormat constructor if you know that the month and day names will be in English (otherwise it'll use the system default locale).