CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaparsingdateformatsimpledateformat
OOProg
OOProg

Reputation: 33

Java 7 SimpleDateformat misuse or issue?

I'm using java 7 and I'm trying to parse a date from a flat file.

I this file's dates have the following format "30-Mar-2012 14:05:02". I can't change this, it depends on another software.

According to the javadoc this format : "dd-MMM-yyyy HH:mm:ss" is the one to use.

But for unknown reason this is not working.

Here is a little program which reproduce the issue.

package javaapplication2;

import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Locale;
import java.util.logging.Level;
import java.util.logging.Logger;

public class JavaApplication2 {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Date d = null;
        try {
            SimpleDateFormat df;
            df = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MMM-yyyy HH:mm:ss", Locale.FRANCE);
            d = df.parse("30-Mar-2012 14:05:02");

        } catch (ParseException ex) {
            System.err.println(ex.getMessage());
        }
        if (d != null) {
            System.out.println(d.toString());
        }
    }
}

The problem does not happen when i put an "s" after "Mar" in the original date ("Mars" is the full name of March in French, this also work with "March" and Locale.US in the format).

Am-I doing something wrong ? Is it really possible to do this that way ? I there an undocumented issue in java about this ?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1219

Answers (2)

nachokk
nachokk

Reputation: 14413

Test your code

        Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
        calendar.set(2012, 2, 30);

    try {
        SimpleDateFormat df;
        df = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MMM-yyyy HH:mm:ss", Locale.FRANCE);
        String s=df.format(calendar.getTime());
        System.out.println(s);

        }

result prints : 30-mars-2012 23:17:46

So it's expecting mars instead of Mar

'Mar' is Locale.US

Upvotes: 1

Evgeniy Dorofeev
Evgeniy Dorofeev

Reputation: 135992

Explanation is here 

    DateFormatSymbols dfs = new DateFormatSymbols(Locale.FRENCH);
    for (String s : dfs.getShortMonths()) {
        System.out.print(s + " ");
    }

output

janv. f?vr. mars avr. mai juin juil. ao?t sept. oct. nov. d?c.

as you can see shortened form for mars = mars.

Upvotes: 2

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