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javaparsingdate
aveschini
aveschini

Reputation: 1712

Java parse different date types

Is there some simple way to parse different type of dates in java without playing with the date strings?

I have to deal with 6 different types of date:

I don't know if a date will arrive in one format or the other from the server...

thank you!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 886

Answers (5)

GenericJon
GenericJon

Reputation: 8986

To elaborate on the stock "Use Joda-Time" answer, in Joda-Time you can create a DateTimeParser for each of your 6 formats, then append them to a single DateTimeFormatter.

See the accepted answer to this question: Using Joda Date & Time API to parse multiple formats

Upvotes: 1

hovanessyan
hovanessyan

Reputation: 31463

I don't think there's an actual "easy" way to deal with such different date formats. If you have the option to nail a "standard date format" to the server that would be the easy way.

A common approach is to build a DateParser for every 'freaky' date format that you have to deal with. Here's an example for your first date, using Joda Time:

String date1 = "16 May 2013 19:27:12 CEST";
        DateTimeFormatter fmt = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
            .appendDayOfMonth(2)
            .appendLiteral(' ')
            .appendMonthOfYearShortText()
            .appendLiteral(' ')
            .appendYear(4, 4)
            .appendLiteral(' ')
            .appendHourOfDay(2)
            .appendLiteral(":")
            .appendMinuteOfDay(2)
            .appendLiteral(":")
            .appendSecondOfDay(2)
            .appendLiteral(' ')
            .appendLiteral("CEST")
            .toFormatter();

        DateTime parseDateTime = fmt.parseDateTime(date1);

        System.out.println(parseDateTime);

I hope this will help you build DateParsers for the other cases. And remember - always save your dates in relation to UTC!

Upvotes: 1

Zeeshan Bilal
Zeeshan Bilal

Reputation: 1247

Here is the sample code, for date string like 2001-07-04T12:08:56.235-0700 we need to use following format "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ"

SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ");
Date date = simpleDateFormat.parse("2001-07-04T12:08:56.235-0700");
System.out.println(date);

details are available in below mentioned link

SimpleDateFormat

Upvotes: 0

sivan
sivan

Reputation: 79

The best-known alternative to the standard API is Joda-Time. Also JSR 310 an improved Date/Time API for Java SE 7

Upvotes: 1

BobTheBuilder
BobTheBuilder

Reputation: 19294

You can iterate over all formats and try to parse, ignore the exception. If no format fits, throw an exception.

similar answer

Upvotes: 4

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