Java SimpleDateFormat parsing issue

Question

I'm trying to parse a date string I got out of a website in Java using the SimpleDateFormat class, but something goes wrong and I can't figure out why.

The date strings come in the following syntax:

"13:37 - Tue 28-Jun-2011"

So I tried doing the following:

SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm - EEE dd-MMM-yyyy");
ParsePosition pos = new ParsePosition(0);   
Date d = dateFormat.parse("13:37 - Tue 28-Jun-2011", pos);

As I said before, this doesn't work; when I print

System.out.println(pos.getErrorIndex());

it prints "8", which I assume means that the error is somewhere around the EEE part. I've tried different permutations but nothing worked. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

bompf

Answer 1

If your trying to parse the date this will work. I dont know what you are trying to do with ParsePosition

   SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm - EEE dd-MMM-yyyy");
   Date d = dateFormat.parse("13:37 - Tue 28-Jun-2011");
   System.out.println(d);

Answer 2

It works fine for me...

SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm - EEE dd-MMM-yyyy");
ParsePosition pos = new ParsePosition(0);   
Date d = dateFormat.parse("13:37 - Tue 28-Jun-2011", pos);

System.out.println(pos.getErrorIndex());
System.out.println(d);

Output -

-1
Tue Jun 28 13:37:00 EDT 2011

Answer 3

I found the problem: I did not know I have to set a locale for the date format..

SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm - EEE dd-MMM-yyyy", Locale.ENGLISH);

This works now!