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Generic date parsing in java

I have date strings in various formats like Oct 10 11:05:03 or 12/12/2016 4:30 etc
If I do
// some code...
getDate("Oct 10 11:05:03", "MMM d HH:mm:ss");
// some code ...
The date gets parsed, but I am getting the year as 1970 (since the year is not specified in the string.) But I want the year as current year if year is not specidied. Same applies for all fields.
here is my getDate function:
public Date getDate(dateStr, pattern) {
SimpleDateFormat parser = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern);
Date date = parser.parse(myDate);
return date;
}
can anybody tell me how to do that inside getDate function (because I want a generic solution)?
Thanks in advance!

If you do not know the format in advance, you should list the actual formats you are expecting and then try to parse them. If one fails, try the next one.
Here is an example of how to fill in the default.
You'll end up with something like this:
DateTimeFormatter f = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
.appendPattern("ddMM")
.parseDefaulting(YEAR, currentYear)
.toFormatter();
LocalDate date = LocalDate.parse("yourstring", f);
Or even better, the abovementioned formatter class supports optional elements. Wrap the year specifier in square brackets and the element will be optional. You can then supply a default with parseDefaulting.
Here is an example:
String s1 = "Oct 5 11:05:03";
String s2 = "Oct 5 1996 13:51:56"; // Year supplied
String format = "MMM d [uuuu ]HH:mm:ss";
DateTimeFormatter f = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
.appendPattern(format)
.parseDefaulting(ChronoField.YEAR, Year.now().getValue())
.toFormatter(Locale.US);
System.out.println(LocalDate.parse(s1, f));
System.out.println(LocalDate.parse(s2, f));
Note: Dates and times are not easy. You should take into consideration that date interpreting is often locale-dependant and this sometimes leads to ambiguity. For example, the date string "05/12/2018" means the 12th of May, 2018 when you are American, but in some European areas it means the 5th of December 2018. You need to be aware of that.

One option would be to concatenate the current year onto the incoming date string, and then parse:
String ts = "Oct 10 11:05:03";
int currYear = Calendar.getInstance().get(Calendar.YEAR);
ts = String.valueOf(currYear) + " " + ts;
Date date = getDate(ts, "yyyy MMM d HH:mm:ss");
System.out.println(date);
Wed Oct 10 11:05:03 CEST 2018
Demo
Note that we could have used StringBuilder above, but the purpose of brevity of code, I used raw string concatenations instead. I also fixed a few typos in your helper method getDate().

How to convert Timestamp into Date format in java

I have a time stamp like this(form a json response) :
"/Date(1479974400000-0800)/"
I'm trying this function to convert time stamp into date:
public String getDate() {
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(Locale.ENGLISH);
cal.setTimeInMillis(time);
String date = DateFormat.format("dd-MM-yyyy", cal).toString();
return date;
}
How to convert this Timestamp into Date format?

Parse directly into an OffsetDateTime
Java can directly parse your string into an OffsetDateTime. Use this formatter:
private static final DateTimeFormatter JSON_TIMESTAMP_FORMATTER
= new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
.appendLiteral("/Date(")
.appendValue(ChronoField.INSTANT_SECONDS, 1, 19, SignStyle.NEVER)
.appendValue(ChronoField.MILLI_OF_SECOND, 3)
.appendOffset("+HHMM", "Z")
.appendLiteral(")/")
.toFormatter();
Then just do:
String time = "/Date(1479974400000-0800)/";
OffsetDateTime odt = OffsetDateTime.parse(time, JSON_TIMESTAMP_FORMATTER);
System.out.println(odt);
Output is:
2016-11-24T00:00-08:00
In your string 1479974400000 is a count of milliseconds since the epoch of Jan 1, 1970 at 00:00 UTC, and -0800 is an offset of -8 hours 0 minutes from UTC (corresponding for example to Pacific Standard Time). To parse the milliseconds we need to parse the seconds since the epoch (all digits except the last three) and then the millisecond of second (the last three digits). By specifying the width of the milliseconds field as 3 Java does this. For it to work it requires that the number is at least 4 digits and not negative, that is not within the first 999 milliseconds after the epoch or earlier. This is also why I specify in the formatter that the seconds must not be signed.
I specified Z for offset zero, I don’t know if you may ever receive this. An offset of +0000 for zero can still be parsed too.
Original answer: parse the milliseconds and the offset separately and combine
First I want to make sure the timestamp I have really lives up to the format I expect. I want to make sure if one day it doesn’t, I don’t just pretend and the user will get incorrect results without knowing they are incorrect. So for parsing the timestamp string, since I didn’t find a date-time format that would accept milliseconds since the epoch, I used a regular expression:
String time = "/Date(1479974400000-0800)/";
Pattern pat = Pattern.compile("/Date\\((\\d+)([+-]\\d{4})\\)/");
Matcher m = pat.matcher(time);
if (m.matches()) {
Instant i = Instant.ofEpochMilli(Long.parseLong(m.group(1)));
System.out.println(i);
}
This prints:
2016-11-24T08:00:00Z
If you want an old-fashioned java.util.Date:
System.out.println(Date.from(i));
On my computer it prints
Thu Nov 24 09:00:00 CET 2016
This will depend on your time zone.
It is not clear to me whether you need to use the zone offset and for what purpose. You may retrieve it from the matcher like this:
ZoneOffset zo = ZoneOffset.of(m.group(2));
System.out.println(zo);
This prints:
-08:00
The zone offset can be used with other time classes, like for instance OffsetDateTime. For example:
OffsetDateTime odt = OffsetDateTime.ofInstant(i, zo);
System.out.println(odt);
I hesitate to mention this, though, because I cannot know whether it is what you need. In any case, it prints:
2016-11-24T00:00-08:00

If by date you mean Date instance, then you can do this:
new Date(Long.parseLong("\/Date(1479974400000-0800)\/".substring(7, 20)));

I assume this info in holding the String representing an Epoch and a TimeZone
"/Date(1479974400000-0800)/"
you need to get rid off the all the not necessary parts and keeping only the
1479974400000-0800
then the epoch is 1479974400000 and I guess the Timezone is 0800
then do:
String[] allTimeInfo = "1310928623-0800".split("-");
DateFormat timeZoneFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss");
timeZoneFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("Etc/GMT-8"));
Date time = new java.util.Date(Long.parseLong(allTimeInfo[0]));
System.out.println(time);
System.out.println(timeZoneFormat.format(time));

The solution works
for me is like this:
String str = obj.getString("eventdate").replaceAll("\\D+", "");
String upToNCharacters = str.substring(0, Math.min(str.length(), 13));
DateFormat timeZoneFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss");
timeZoneFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-8"));
Date time = new java.util.Date(Long.parseLong(upToNCharacters));
// System.out.println(time);
model.setDate(String.valueOf(timeZoneFormat.format(time)));
Use time variable where you want

Convert date format from php to Java?

I am working on a Streaming Android application which I have to convert some php codes to java.
How can I convert this date format from php to java?
$today = gmdate("n/j/Y g:i:s A");

This date format in php is interpreted like this:
n: Numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros
j: Day of the month without leading zeros
Y: A full numeric representation of a year, 4 digits
g: 12-hour format of an hour without leading zeros
i: Minutes with leading zeros
s: Seconds, with leading zeros
A: Uppercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem - AM/PM
and the same date format in java is like this:
SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("M/d/yyyy h:mm:ss a");
String today = simpleDateFormat.format(new Date());

To get a new java.util.Date object from your PHP date string, in Java:
String phpDateString = "7/24/2016 12:21:44 am";
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("M/d/yyyy h:mm:ss a");
Date javaDate = sdf.parse(phpDateString);
System.out.println(javaDate);
System.out.println(sdf.format(javaDate));
Output:
Sun Jul 24 00:21:44 CEST 2016
7/24/2016 12:21:44 AM
OP's self-answer was very informative, but it had an error in the Java expression (it's lowercase h for am/pm hours) and didn't include code to actually parse the PHP string into a Java Date object, which was the original question.

How do I create the java date object without time stamp [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Java program to get the current date without timestamp
(17 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
I want to create a Date object without a TimeZone (eg : 2007-06-21). Is this possible?
When I use the following method it prints like Thu Jun 21 00:00:00 GMT 2007
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
TimeZone timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT");
timeZone.setDefault(timeZone);
sdf.setTimeZone(timeZone);
Date pickUpDate = sdf.parse("2007-06-21");
System.out.println(pickUpDate);

If you want to format a date, you need to use DateFormat or something similar. A Date is just an instant in time - the number of milliseconds since the Unix epoch. It doesn't have any idea of time zone, calendar system or format. The toString() method always uses the system local time zone, and always formats it in a default way. From the documentation:
Converts this Date object to a String of the form:
dow mon dd hh:mm:ss zzz yyyy
So it's behaving exactly as documented.
You've already got a DateFormat with the right format, so you just need to call format on it:
System.out.println("pickUpDate" + sdf.format(pickUpDate));
Of course it doesn't make much sense in your sample, given that you've only just parsed it - but presumably you'd normally be passing the date around first.
Note that if this is for interaction with a database, it would be better not to pass it as a string at all. Keep the value in a "native" representation for as much of the time as possible, and use something like PreparedStatement.setDate to pass it to the database.
As an aside, if you can possibly change to use Joda Time or the new date/time API in Java 8 (java.time.*) you'll have a much smoother time of it with anything date/time-related. The Date/Calendar API is truly dreadful.

This is the toString() of the java.util.Date
public String toString() {
// "EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy";
BaseCalendar.Date date = normalize();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(28);
int index = date.getDayOfWeek();
if (index == gcal.SUNDAY) {
index = 8;
}
convertToAbbr(sb, wtb[index]).append(' '); // EEE
convertToAbbr(sb, wtb[date.getMonth() - 1 + 2 + 7]).append(' '); // MMM
CalendarUtils.sprintf0d(sb, date.getDayOfMonth(), 2).append(' '); // dd
CalendarUtils.sprintf0d(sb, date.getHours(), 2).append(':'); // HH
CalendarUtils.sprintf0d(sb, date.getMinutes(), 2).append(':'); // mm
CalendarUtils.sprintf0d(sb, date.getSeconds(), 2).append(' '); // ss
TimeZone zi = date.getZone();
if (zi != null) {
sb.append(zi.getDisplayName(date.isDaylightTime(), zi.SHORT, Locale.US)); // zzz
} else {
sb.append("GMT");
}
sb.append(' ').append(date.getYear()); // yyyy
return sb.toString();
}
So, if you will pass a Date and try to print it this will be printed out all the time.

Code:
Date date = new Date();
System.out.println(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd").format(date));
Date : Fri Apr 29 04:53:16 GMT 2016
Sample Output : 2016-04-29
Imports required :
import java.util.Date; //for new Date()
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat; // for the format change

System.out.println("pickUpDate " + sdf.format(pickUpDate));
You can use the above code to get formatted Date as String

Use this Code:
SimpleDateFormat sdf= new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
Date pickUpDate =sdf.parse("2007-06-21");
System.out.println("pickUpDate "+sdf.format(pickUpDate));
Hope it'll help you.

String your_format_date=sdf.format(pickUpDate);
System.out.println("pick Up Date " + your_format_date);

Date isn't a date. It's a timestamp. That's some impressive API design, isn't it?
The type you need is now java.time.LocalDate, added in Java 8.
If you can't use Java 8, you can use ThreeTen, a backport for Java 7.

How to format date for use in a URL as a parameter

I am using an API to get a weather forecast up until a particular date in Java.
The requirement for passing a date as a URL parameter is that it must be in "YYYY-MM-DD'T'HH:MM:SS" format. I get input in this format from the user, then get the current system date, and then loop until the desired date. The problem lies in converting the input date string into the date format, incrementing it by one day, and then converting it back to the string format for URL parameter.
I am using the following code to do this but it is giving me incorrect results:
formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("YYYY-MM-DD'T'HH:MM:SS");
Date date1 = formatter.parse(inputtime);
System.out.println(date1);
Calendar c1 = Calendar.getInstance();
c1.setTime(date1);
c1.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1); // number of days to add
inputtime = formatter.format(c1.getTime()); // dt is now the new date
System.out.println(c1.getTime());
System.out.println(inputtime);
inputtime is the input by the user. If I give "2014-04-12T00:00:00" as inputtime, date1 is then "Sun Dec 29 00:00:00 PKT 2013", c1.getTime() returns "Mon Dec 30 00:00:00 PKT 2013" and inputtime becomes then "2014-12-364T00:12:00" according to the above code block.
How can this logic error be corrected?

You should consider SimpleDateFormat date and time patterns: link
For example, something like this:
formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss");

Have a try to change your date pattern from
new SimpleDateFormat("YYYY-MM-DD'T'HH:MM:SS");
to
new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss");
Letter Date or Time Component Presentation Examples
y Year Year 1996; 96
M Month in year Month July; Jul; 07
D Day in year Number 189
d Day in month Number 10
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

The java.util.Date and .Calendar classes bundled with Java are notoriously troublesome. Avoid them.
That format is defined by the ISO 8601 standard. The Joda-Time library follows that standard's formats as a default for both parsing and generating strings. So does the new java.time package in Java 8.
Your string omits a time zone offset. So, you need to know and specify the time zone intended by that string. Perhaps the time zone is UTC meaning a time zone offset of zero.
A day is not always 24 hours. If you meant 24 hours rather than 1 day, call the method plusHours( 24 ).
Here is example code in Joda-Time 2.3.
String input = "2014-01-02T03:04:05";
DateTimeZone timeZone = DateTimeZone.UTC;
DateTime dateTime = new DateTime( input, timeZone );
DateTime tomorrow = dateTime.plusDays( 1 );
String outputWithOffset = tomorrow.toString();
String output = ISODateTimeFormat.dateHourMinuteSecond().print( tomorrow );