Time format bug for 12 AM/PM in android

Question

Im creating an alarm apps for android. I dont really understand about time format so i go googling and got this post.

I followed that post, but a bug still remains : My apps cant tell the difference between (lets say) 12:17 AM and 12:17 PM. So the bug will occurred if the hour is 12 .

What i did when taking the value form the TimePicker (hh:m:aa) format :

    String hour = "";
    Calendar datetime = Calendar.getInstance();
    datetime.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY,  timeSchedule.getCurrentHour());
    datetime.set(Calendar.MINUTE, timeSchedule.getCurrentMinute());

    if (datetime.get(Calendar.AM_PM) == Calendar.AM && timeSchedule.getCurrentHour() == 0) //12 AM = 0
        hour = "00"+ ":" + timeSchedule.getCurrentMinute();
    else
        hour = timeSchedule.getCurrentHour() + ":" + timeSchedule.getCurrentMinute();

With above code, 12:17 AM will become 00:17 while 12:17PM will become 12:17PM. This value is stored in the mysql Time format . Since i want to create an alarm apps, please kindly tell me whether i did is right or not .

And this is what i did to show them to the user, where 00:17 (taken from the result of above code) become 12:17AM (correct) but 12:17 become 12:17AM ( wrong ) :

    String time = getItem(position).getTime(); //value from above code
    SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm:ss");
    SimpleDateFormat newFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm:aa");
    String formatedTime = "";
    try {
        Date date = format.parse(time);
        formatedTime = newFormat.format(date);
    } catch (ParseException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

To be honest, this is the first time i deal with somekind of alarm app, so please kindly tell me if i do something wrong. (beside my bug)

Thanks for your time.

UPDATE

This is what i did now :

I changed the mysql column from Time to Varchar, because Time wont let me insert "AM/PM".

After that :

    String hour = "";
    Calendar datetime = Calendar.getInstance();
    datetime.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY,  timeSchedule.getCurrentHour());
    datetime.set(Calendar.MINUTE, timeSchedule.getCurrentMinute());

    String am_pm = "";
    if (datetime.get(Calendar.AM_PM) == Calendar.AM)
         am_pm = "AM";
    else
         am_pm = "PM";

    hour = (datetime.get(Calendar.HOUR) == 0) ?"12":datetime.get(Calendar.HOUR)+"";
final String time = hour+ ":" + datetime.get(Calendar.MINUTE) + " " + am_pm ;

Above code return 12:17 AM and 12:17 PM. With this, i dont have to use SimpleDateFormat to re-format the date again. Is this the correct way to set the time for alarm?

Answer 1

I am a bit confused with the notation you want to use. There are two approaches for representing AM, PM hours. Either in the range of 0:00-11:59 or in the range 1:00-12:59 . You do not use either, thus you get troubles in representing the hours you encounter. PLease read through the different options provided in SimpleDateFormat .

Also restrain from using your own conversition - use the sdk class everywhere, thus you will ensure you do not get into made up format.