CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javadate-format
Steve
Steve

Reputation: 3

Parsing a Date in Java with a weird TimeZone

I'm getting dates sent to my application in the following format:

yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS-04:00

The problem is the TimeZone, it doesn't follow the Z format (-0400) and it doesn't follow the z format (GMT-04:00).

Is there another format option I'm missing or can I input a way to parse these TimeZones?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 442

Answers (3)

Jberg
Jberg

Reputation: 945

You appear to be getting an XSD dateTime format. If you want to stick with pure out of the box Java look at javax.xml.datatype.XMLGregorianCalendar which was built to handle that sort of thing.

However as another poster has said you'd probably have an easier time using a third party library such as Joda time. Java Calendar objects are always a bit cumbersome to use.

Upvotes: 1

corsiKa
corsiKa

Reputation: 82599

The naive approach is quick to develop and simple.

class TimeTest {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String s = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS-04:00";
        String t = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS-0400";
        System.out.println(s + " --> " + fix(s));
        System.out.println(t + " --> " + fix(t));
    }

    static String fix(String s) {
        int last = s.lastIndexOf(":");
        if(last == s.length() - 3) {
            s = s.substring(0,last) + s.substring(last+1);
        }
        return s;
    }
}

Upvotes: 1

Mark Tozzi
Mark Tozzi

Reputation: 10953

Consider switching to Joda time - it offers a lot more flexibility and readability than the java native date libraries, including handling that time zone style (that's one of the key reasons I switched).

Upvotes: 2

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