Format date with SimpleDateFormat

Question

How can I parse a date like '2012-08-22 11:55:38

to '8 of August'

I tried with formateador = new SimpleDateFormat("d MMM");

But I'm getting an 'Unparseable date' exception.

Hope you can help me. Thanks

Answer 1

You parse from a string to a Date . You can then format from a Date to a string using a different pattern. Currently, given the code you've shown us, it looks like you're trying to parse the value "2012-08-22 11:55:38" with a SimpleDateFormat expecting the pattern "d MMM", which it clearly doesn't comply to. You should have something like:

SimpleDateFormat inputFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss",
                                                    Locale.US);
// TODO: Set the time zone appropriately
Date date = inputFormat.parse(inputText);

SimpleDateFormat outputFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("d MMM", targetLocale);
// TODO: Set the time zone appropriately
String outputText = outputFormat.format(date);

Note that if you're doing any significant amount of date/time work in Java, you should look into Joda Time , which is a much better date/time API.

Answer 2

This should work (if I understand what you are asking):

String s = "2012-08-22 11:55:38";
DateFormat fmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss");
Date dt = fmt.parse(s);
DateFormat output = new SimpleDateFormat("d 'of' MMMM", Locale.US);
System.out.println(output.format(dt)); //prints 22 of August

Answer 3

You are having problem while parsing the date from the input string.

"2012-08-22 11:55:38" is in "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" format, which you should use to first parse the date from the input string.

Then once you have a Date object, you can format the date in the required format.

Answer 4

If I get your question correct, you try to parse the first string to a date and then format the resulted date to the seconds string. If this is true then see the code below:

SimpleDateFormat f1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
SimpleDateFormat f2 = new SimpleDateFormat("dd 'of' MMMM");
try {
  java.util.Date date = f1.parse("2012-08-22 11:55:38");
  System.out.println(f2.format(date));
} catch (ParseException ex) {
  ex.printStackTrace(); 
}