CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javadatetime
aatuc210
aatuc210

Reputation: 1868

Can SimpleDateFormat print the time zone?

If I want my formatted date to look like:

2021-07-21 2:02:08.483 p.m. EDT

Can the SimpleDateFormat class print "EDT" or "EST", without me hard-coding it? What would be the format specifier? So far I have:

yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS a

Upvotes: 1

Views: 129

Answers (2)

Arvind Kumar Avinash
Arvind Kumar Avinash

Reputation: 79095

java.time

The java.util Date-Time API and their formatting API, SimpleDateFormat are outdated and error-prone. It is recommended to stop using them completely and switch to the modern Date-Time API*.

Solution using java.time, the modern Date-Time API:

import java.time.ZoneId;
import java.time.ZonedDateTime;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.util.Locale;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("uuuu-MM-dd H:mm:ss a zzz", Locale.CANADA);
        String strDateTime = ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId.of("America/New_York")).format(dtf);
        System.out.println(strDateTime);
    }
}

Output:

2021-07-21 10:34:12 a.m. EDT

ONLINE DEMO

Learn more about the modern Date-Time API from Trail: Date Time.

Just for the sake of completeness

Just for the sake of completeness, given below is the solution using SimpleDateFormat.

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Locale;
import java.util.TimeZone;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd H:mm:ss a zzz", Locale.CANADA);
        sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("America/New_York"));
        String strDateTime = sdf.format(new Date());
        System.out.println(strDateTime);
    }
}

Output:

2021-07-21 10:36:52 a.m. EDT

ONLINE DEMO

* For any reason, if you have to stick to Java 6 or Java 7, you can use ThreeTen-Backport which backports most of the java.time functionality to Java 6 & 7. If you are working for an Android project and your Android API level is still not compliant with Java-8, check Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring and How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project.

Upvotes: 6

maio290
maio290

Reputation: 6732

You just need to add a z to your pattern - but next time, refer to the docs.

Upvotes: 0

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