CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaandroidcalendar
user8780097
user8780097

Reputation:

How do I get current time using Calendar?

My time displays in this format: 11:35 PM.

But I want this format: 11:35 P.M. <-- notice the extra dot.

this is my current approach: 

 SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm a.").format(calendar.getTime());

this is what I have tried, but It would crash:

SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm .a.").format(calendar.getTime());

Upvotes: 0

Views: 145

Answers (3)

Sushin PS
Sushin PS

Reputation: 100

Some devices like Redmi Note 3 etc. are defaultly using a.m. and p.m.

So after formatting replaceAll am with a.m. and pm with p.m.

String time = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm aaa").format(calendar.getTime());
System.out.println(time.toUpperCase().replaceAll("AM.", "A.M.").replaceAll("PM.", "P.M."));

Upvotes: -1

Andreas
Andreas

Reputation: 159086

Using DateFormatSymbols, as shown in my other answer, is more reliable. I'm keeping this answer as an illustration on the effect of locales on date formatting.

Only 3 locales seem to use p.m. and a.m. (on my JDK 1.8.0_91):

  • es-US
  • ga
  • ga-IE

So you could set the locale, e.g.

SimpleDateFormat fmt = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm a", Locale.forLanguageTag("es-US"));
System.out.println(fmt.format(new Date(2000,0,1,12,1))); // prints:  12:01 p.m.

If you want to check the effect of locales on a particular format string, run this code:

Date am = new Date(2017,0,1,6,0);
Date pm = new Date(2017,0,1,18,0);
Map<String, Set<String>> map = new TreeMap<>();
for (Locale locale : Locale.getAvailableLocales()) {
    SimpleDateFormat fmt = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm a", locale);
    String s = fmt.format(am) + "  " + fmt.format(pm);
    map.computeIfAbsent(s, k -> new TreeSet<>()).add(locale.toLanguageTag());
}
map.entrySet().forEach(System.out::println);

On my JDK it creates this output:

06:00 AM  06:00 PM=[be, be-BY, bg, bg-BG, ca, ca-ES, da, da-DK, de, de-AT, de-CH, de-DE, de-GR, de-LU, en, en-AU, en-CA, en-GB, en-IE, en-IN, en-MT, en-NZ, en-PH, en-SG, en-US, en-ZA, es, es-AR, es-BO, es-CL, es-CO, es-CR, es-CU, es-DO, es-EC, es-ES, es-GT, es-HN, es-MX, es-NI, es-PA, es-PE, es-PR, es-PY, es-SV, es-UY, es-VE, et, et-EE, fr, fr-BE, fr-CA, fr-CH, fr-FR, fr-LU, he, he-IL, hi, hr, hr-HR, id, id-ID, is, is-IS, it, it-CH, it-IT, lt, lt-LT, lv, lv-LV, mk, mk-MK, ms, ms-MY, nl, nl-BE, nl-NL, nn-NO, no, no-NO, pl, pl-PL, pt, pt-BR, pt-PT, ro, ro-RO, ru, ru-RU, sk, sk-SK, sl, sl-SI, sr, sr-BA, sr-CS, sr-Latn, sr-Latn-BA, sr-Latn-ME, sr-Latn-RS, sr-ME, sr-RS, tr, tr-TR, uk, uk-UA, und]
06:00 DE  06:00 DU=[hu, hu-HU]
06:00 PD  06:00 MD=[sq, sq-AL]
06:00 QN  06:00 WN=[mt, mt-MT]
06:00 SA  06:00 CH=[vi, vi-VN]
06:00 a.m.  06:00 p.m.=[es-US, ga, ga-IE]
06:00 ap.  06:00 ip.=[fi, fi-FI]
06:00 dop.  06:00 odp.=[cs, cs-CZ]
06:00 fm  06:00 em=[sv, sv-SE]
06:00 ΠΜ  06:00 ΜΜ=[el-CY]
06:00 πμ  06:00 μμ=[el, el-GR]
06:00 ص  06:00 م=[ar, ar-AE, ar-BH, ar-DZ, ar-EG, ar-IQ, ar-JO, ar-KW, ar-LB, ar-LY, ar-MA, ar-OM, ar-QA, ar-SA, ar-SD, ar-SY, ar-TN, ar-YE]
06:00 ก่อนเที่ยง  06:00 หลังเที่ยง=[th, th-TH]
06:00 上午  06:00 下午=[zh, zh-CN, zh-HK, zh-SG, zh-TW]
06:00 午前  06:00 午後=[ja, ja-JP, ja-JP-u-ca-japanese-x-lvariant-JP]
06:00 오전  06:00 오후=[ko, ko-KR]
०६:०० पूर्वाह्न  ०६:०० अपराह्न=[hi-IN]
๐๖:๐๐ ก่อนเที่ยง  ๐๖:๐๐ หลังเที่ยง=[th-TH-u-nu-thai-x-lvariant-TH]

Upvotes: 2

Andreas
Andreas

Reputation: 159086

If you want to override the AM/PM text, but otherwise retain normal formatting, use the DateFormatSymbols object.

Using DateFormatSymbols ensures that the SimpleDateFormat can be used for both parsing and formatting.

The advantage of this solution, as opposed to my other answer, is that you are not susceptible to the JDK changing a particular locales formatting in future versions, and/or other JDK implementations.

The following example uses the standard formatting for US English, but overriding the AM/PM texts to be uppercase with periods. The example shows that both parsing and formatting works.

DateFormatSymbols symbols = DateFormatSymbols.getInstance(Locale.US);
symbols.setAmPmStrings(new String[] { "A.M.", "P.M." });

SimpleDateFormat fmt = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm a", symbols);

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTime(fmt.parse("10:23 A.M."));
cal.add(Calendar.MINUTE, 500); // 8 hrs 20 mins
System.out.println(fmt.format(cal.getTime())); // prints:  06:43 P.M.

Upvotes: 4

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