SimpleDateFormat

In this chapter you will learn:

What is Java SimpleDateFormat for
What are date and time Patterns for SimpleDateFormat
Repeat letters to create format

What is Java SimpleDateFormat for

SimpleDateFormat is a concrete class for formatting and parsing dates in a locale-sensitive manner. It allows for formatting date to text, parsing from text to date, and normalization.

Date and Time Patterns

The following table shows the date and time patterns for SimpleDateFormat.

Letter	Date or Time Component	Presentation	Examples
G	Era designator	Text	AD
y	Year	Year	1996; 96
Y	Week year	Year	2009; 09
M	Month in year	Month	July; Jul; 07
w	Week in year	Number	27
W	Week in month	Number	2
D	Day in year	Number	189
d	Day in month	Number	10
F	Day of week in month	Number	2
E	Day name in week	Text	Tuesday; Tue
u	Day number of week (1 = Monday, ..., 7 = Sunday)	Number	1
a	Am/pm marker	Text	PM
H	Hour in day (0-23)	Number	0
k	Hour in day (1-24)	Number	24
K	Hour in am/pm (0-11)	Number	0
h	Hour in am/pm (1-12)	Number	12
m	Minute in hour	Number	30
s	Second in minute	Number	55
S	Millisecond	Number	978
z	Time zone	General time zone	Pacific Standard Time; PST; GMT-08:00
Z	Time zone	RFC 822 time zone	-0800
X	Time zone	ISO 8601 time zone	-08; -0800; -08:00

Repeat letters to create format

If the number of pattern letters is 4 or more, the full form is used; otherwise a short form is used if available. For parsing, both forms are accepted, independent of the number of pattern letters.

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
/*  ja v  a 2  s .  co m*/
public class Main{

  public static void main(String args[]) {
    Date date = new Date();
    SimpleDateFormat sdf;
    sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm:ss");
    System.out.println(sdf.format(date));
    sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd MMM yyyy hh:mm:ss zzz");
    System.out.println(sdf.format(date));
    sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("E MMM dd yyyy");
    System.out.println(sdf.format(date));

  }
}