Parse date java

Question

How can I parse this date format Mon May 14 2010 00:00:00 GMT+0100 (Afr. centrale Ouest) to this date format 05-14-2010 I mean mm-dd-yyyy

it's telling me this error :

java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "Mon May 14 2010 00:00:00 GMT+0100 (Afr. centrale Ouest)"

EDIT

SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("M-d-yyyy");
newFirstDate = formatter.parse(""+vo.getFirstDate());  //here the error

Thanks in advance!

I have edited my post. vo.getFirstDate() returns a date in the first format :Mon May 14 2010 00:00:00 GMT+0100 (Afr. centrale Ouest) — Adil
– Adil, Commented May 23, 2012 at 18:54
If it returns a java.util.Date there's no need to parse() and all you need is new SimpleDateFormat("MM-dd-yyyy").format(vo.getFirstDate()). — Philipp Reichart
– Philipp Reichart, Commented May 23, 2012 at 19:18
@PhilippReichart That ""+... is very suspicious, though. Why would he add that if he already had a String? — Marko Topolnik
– Marko Topolnik, Commented May 23, 2012 at 19:51

Marko Topolnik · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-24 05:25:29Z

5

This code first adapts the string a bit and then goes on to parse it. It respects the timezone, just removes "GMT" because that's how SimpleDateFormat likes it.

final String date = "Mon May 14 2010 00:00:00 GMT+0100 (Afr. centrale Ouest)"
  .replaceFirst("GMT", "");
System.out.println(
    new SimpleDateFormat("MM-dd-yyyy").format(
        new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd yyyy HH:mm:ss Z").parse(date)));

Prints:

05-14-2010

Bear in mind that the output is also timezone-sensitive. The instant defined by your input string is being interpreted in my timezone as belonging to the date that the program printed. If you just need to transform "May 14 2010" into "05-14-2010", that's another story and SimpleDateFormat is not well suited for that. The JodaTime library would handle that case much more cleanly.

edited May 24, 2012 at 5:25

answered May 23, 2012 at 18:55

Marko Topolnik

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3 Comments

Adil Over a year ago

Thanks, same error : java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "Mon May 14 2012 00:00:00 +0100"

Marko Topolnik Over a year ago

@adil I ran this code and didn't get the exception. The code prints as the answer states. This is Java 6, BTW. I see from your message that you obviously didn't run my code, but some version of your own. Since I don't know what exact code you ran to get the exception, there's little I can do about it.

Marko Topolnik Over a year ago

@adil Now I parsed the exact string you complain about in the comment above:

System.out.println(new SimpleDateFormat("MM-dd-yyyy").format(new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd yyyy HH:mm:ss Z").parse("Mon May 14 2012 00:00:00 +0100")));

and it prints 05-14-2012.

Jonathan Payne · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-23 19:41:57Z

2

import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;

public class Test
{
    public static void main( String args[] ) throws ParseException
    {
        // Remove GMT from date string.
        String string = "Mon May 14 2010 00:00:00 GMT+0100 (Afr. centrale Ouest)".replace( "GMT" , "" );

        // Parse string to date object.
        Date date = new SimpleDateFormat( "EEE MMM dd yyyy HH:mm:ss Z" ).parse( string );

        // Format date to new format
        System.out.println( new SimpleDateFormat( "MM-dd-yyyy" ).format( date ) );
    }
}

Outputs:

05-13-2010

edited May 23, 2012 at 19:41

answered May 23, 2012 at 18:45

Jonathan Payne

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2 Comments

Marko Topolnik Over a year ago

It's related to the question now, but very brittle.

Jonathan Payne Over a year ago

Updated again, this time with less brittle.

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