Parse a String to obtain a Date/GregorianCalendar object
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat; import java.util.Calendar; import java.util.Date; import java.util.Locale; public class Main { public static Calendar parseTimestamp(String timestamp) throws Exception { SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MMM-yyyy HH:mm:ss", Locale.US); Date d = sdf.parse(timestamp); Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(); cal.setTime(d); return cal; } public static void main(String a[]) throws Exception { String timestampToParse = "24-Feb-2009 17:39:35"; System.out.println("Timestamp : " + timestampToParse); SimpleDateFormat sdf = new java.text.SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"); System.out.println("Calendar : " + sdf.format(parseTimestamp(timestampToParse).getTime())); } }