Develop Reference

Format Date on Server Response from REST API not working

I have a method that gets data from REST server. The method returns the date in this format "2017-08-14T17:45:16.24Z". i also wrote a method that formats date in the order "dd/MM/yyyy". This works perfectly but when i try to format the date from the server and set the that to an Edittext it does not work. This shows shows that my method to format the date in the server response does not work. My method to format the date is below:
private String formatDate(String dateString) {
try {
SimpleDateFormat sd = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS" );
Date d = sd.parse(dateString);
sd = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
return sd.format(d);
} catch (ParseException e) {
}
return "";
}
This method below that gets the date from the server and formats the date and sets the date to an Edit-text.
public void getProfile() {
Retrofit retrofit = RetrofitClient.getClient(authUser.getToken());
APIService mAPIService = retrofit.create(APIService.class);
mAPIService.getProfile("Bearer " + authUser.getToken()).enqueue(new Callback<Profile>() {
#Override
public void onResponse(Response<Profile> response, Retrofit retrofit) {
if(response.isSuccess()) {
try {
String loginSuccess = response.body().getSuccess();
if (loginSuccess.equals("true")) {
id_name.setText(response.body().getData().getName());
id_email.setText(response.body().getData().getEmail());
phone_input_layout.setText(response.body().getData().getPhoneNumber());
id_gender.setText(response.body().getData().getGender());
String dateOfBirth = response.body().getData().getDateOfBirth();
id_date_of_birth.setText(formatDate(dateOfBirth));
//updateLabel(dateOfBirth);
id_residential_address.setText(response.body().getData().getResidentialAddress());
if (response.body().getData().getEmploymentStatus().equals("Student")) {
id_nss_number.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
maximum_layout.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
extended_layout.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
} else if (response.body().getData().getEmploymentStatus().equals("Employed")) {
maximum_layout.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
extended_layout.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
id_nss_number.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
id_type.setText(response.body().getData().getIdType());
id_number.setText(response.body().getData().getIdNumber());
id_expiry_date.setText(response.body().getData().getIdExpiryDate());
}
} else {
String message = response.body().getMessage();
Log.e("getProfileError", message);
Toast.makeText(UserProfileActivity.this, message, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
}catch (Exception e){
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Some fields are empty", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
#Override
public void onFailure(Throwable throwable) {
Log.e("getProfileError", throwable.getMessage());
Toast.makeText(UserProfileActivity.this, "Unable to Login, Please Try Again", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
});
}
this is the exception i get from the date format
I/dateError:: Unparseable date: "1988-11-09T00:00:00Z"

Your desired format is
yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'
The last Z stands for "zero hour offset" also known as "Zulu time" (UTC).
SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'", Locale.US);
format.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
With this UTC timezone, converted hour will be 20H.
If you don't add timezone you will have your expected hour 17H.

this is the error i get from my formatDate I/dateError:: Unparseable date: "1988-11-09T00:00:00Z" (at offset 19)
That date-time string has got no decimals on the second (and no decimal point). Offset 19 is where the Z is, and where the decimal point is in your format pattern string. This causes your exception.
java.time, the modern Java date and time API, will solve your problem easily:
private static final DateTimeFormatter dateFormatter
= DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd/MM/yyyy");
private static String formatDate(String dateString) {
return Instant.parse(dateString)
.atZone(ZoneId.of("Australia/Queensland"))
.format(dateFormatter);
}
This will work with and without decimals on the seconds:
System.out.println(formatDate("2017-08-14T17:45:16.24Z"));
System.out.println(formatDate("1988-11-09T00:00:00Z"));
This prints
15/08/2017
09/11/1988
You may be surprised that the first line says the 15th of the month when the day-of-month in the string is 14. This is because when it is 17:45 in UTC, it is already the next day in Australia. I suppose you want the day in your user’s time zone. Therefore please substitute your desired time zone if it didn’t happen to be Australia/Queensland. If you do want the date in UTC, use this line instead of the atZone call:
.atOffset(ZoneOffset.UTC)
This will make sure you get the same date as in the string.
As a detail, the above code also parses your 0.24 seconds correctly. SimpleDateFormat understood 24 as 24 milliseconds, so you got 0.024 seconds instead, a slight inaccuracy. Another detail, I declared your method static, it’s not necessary, but we might as well.
Question: Can I use java.time on Android?
Yes, you can use java.time on Android. It just requires at least Java 6.
In Java 8 and later and on newer Android devices the modern API comes built-in.
In Java 6 and 7 get the ThreeTen Backport, the backport of the new classes (ThreeTen for JSR 310; see the links at the bottom).
On older Android use the Android edition of ThreeTen Backport. It’s called ThreeTenABP. And make sure you import the date and time classes from org.threeten.bp with subpackages.
Links
Oracle tutorial: Date Time explaining how to use java.time.
Java Specification Request (JSR) 310, where java.time was first described.
ThreeTen Backport project, the backport of java.timeto Java 6 and 7 (ThreeTen for JSR-310).
ThreeTenABP, Android edition of ThreeTen Backport
Question: How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project, with a very thorough explanation.

Android - Displaying month name for different date formats

I have an app that displays dates and times in a localized format for different areas, that is - it shows a user dates and times based on his preference. But my issue is that it always displays numbers, ie yyyy.mm.dd, or mm/dd/yyy, or dd,mm,yyyy. What I would like to have is this: show date so that the day is a number, year is a number, but the month is displayed as a string, ie. Jan / Xin / Gen / Jān / Yan... or 01 Jan 2018 / Jan 01 2018 / 2018 Jan 01, and so on, but still keep the current local formatting. I know that I could do that if I hardcode it like MMM, but I want it to change, depending on the localized format.
So basically this is my question: how can I display localized time, from a value I get from the server (yyyy-MM-dd HH: mm: ss), with month displayed as a three letter word, no matter what locale it uses?
I know this question sounds familiar, but so far I have tried a lot of answers, both on stack overflow, and other sources, but without any success. Some of the things I have tried include: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 ... but I couldn't make it work in my example.
My Adapter:
public void onBindViewHolder(RestaurantsAdapter.RestaurantsViewHolder holder, int position) {
// getting restaurant data for the row
Restaurant restaurant = restaurant Items.get(position);
holder.userName.setText(restaurant .getUserName());
holder.date.setText(convertDate(restaurant .getDateTime())); //string dobiti u formatu, pretvoriti ga u localized i podijeliti na dva dijela
holder.time.setText(convertTime(restaurant .getDateTime()));
TextDrawable.IBuilder builder = TextDrawable.builder()
.beginConfig()
.withBorder(0)
.toUpperCase()
.endConfig()
.roundRect(10);
ColorGenerator generator = ColorGenerator.MATERIAL;
int color = generator.getColor(restaurant.getUserId());
TextDrawable textDrawable = builder.build(restaurant Items.get(position).getUserName().substring(0, 1), color);
holder.thumbNail.setImageDrawable(textDrawable);
Picasso.with(context)
.load(AppConfig.URL_PROFILE_PHOTO + restaurant.getThumbnailUrl())
.placeholder(textDrawable)
.error(textDrawable)
.transform(new RoundedTransform(12, 0))
.fit()
.centerCrop()
.into(holder.thumbNail);
}
private String convertDate(String time) {
final DateFormat shortDateFormat = android.text.format.DateFormat.getDateFormat(context.getApplicationContext());
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatReceived = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss", Locale.getDefault());
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatConverted = new SimpleDateFormat(((SimpleDateFormat) shortDateFormat).toPattern(), Locale.getDefault());
java.util.Date date = null;
try {
date = dateFormatReceived.parse(time);
} catch (ParseException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return dateFormatConverted.format(date);
}
private String convertTime(String time) {
final DateFormat shortTimeFormat = android.text.format.DateFormat.getTimeFormat(context.getApplicationContext());
SimpleDateFormat timeFormatReceived = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss", Locale.getDefault());
SimpleDateFormat timeFormatConverted = new SimpleDateFormat(((SimpleDateFormat) shortTimeFormat).toPattern(), Locale.getDefault());
java.util.Date date = null;
try {
date = timeFormatReceived.parse(time);
} catch (ParseException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return timeFormatConverted.format(date);
}
UPDATE:
I tried adding this to my solution:
private String convertDate(String time) {
final DateFormat shortDateFormat = android.text.format.DateFormat.getDateFormat(context.getApplicationContext());
Calendar Now = Calendar.getInstance();
Now.getDisplayName(Calendar.HOUR, Calendar.SHORT, Locale.getDefault());
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatReceived = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss", Locale.getDefault());
SimpleDateFormat dateFormatConverted = new SimpleDateFormat(((SimpleDateFormat) shortDateFormat).toPattern(), Locale.getDefault());
dateFormatConverted.getDisplayName(Calendar.HOUR, Calendar.SHORT, Locale.getDefault());
java.util.Date date = null;
try {
date = dateFormatReceived.parse(time);
} catch (ParseException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return dateFormatConverted.format(date);
}

I think the following method will give you the date-time formatter you want.
public static DateTimeFormatter getLocalizedDateFormatter(Locale requestedLocale) {
String formatPatternString = DateTimeFormatterBuilder.getLocalizedDateTimePattern(
FormatStyle.SHORT, null,
Chronology.ofLocale(requestedLocale), requestedLocale);
// if not already showing month name, modify so it shows abbreviated month name
if (! formatPatternString.contains("MMM")) {
formatPatternString = formatPatternString.replaceAll("M+", "MMM");
}
return DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern(formatPatternString, requestedLocale);
}
Test:
Locale[] locales = { Locale.US, Locale.FRANCE, Locale.GERMANY,
Locale.forLanguageTag("da-DK"), Locale.forLanguageTag("sr-BA") };
LocalDate today = LocalDate.now(ZoneId.of("Europe/Sarajevo"));
for (Locale currentLocale : locales) {
DateTimeFormatter ldf = getLocalizedDateFormatter(currentLocale);
System.out.format(currentLocale, "%-33S%s%n",
currentLocale.getDisplayName(), today.format(ldf));
}
Output:
ENGLISH (UNITED STATES) Dec/24/17
FRENCH (FRANCE) 24/déc./17
GERMAN (GERMANY) 24.Dez.17
DANSK (DANMARK) 24-dec.-17
SERBIAN (BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA) 17-дец-24
JSR-310 also known as java.time
You tried to use the long outdated and notoriously troublesome classes DateFormat and SimpleDateFormat. Instead I recommend you make it a habit to use JSR-310, the modern Java date and time API. So I do that in the method above.
I don’t think it was part of the question, but for the sake of completeness, parse the date-time string as follows. The formatter you get from my getLocalizedDateFormatter can be used for formatting a LocalDateTime and many other date-time types in addition to LocalDate.
LocalDateTime ldt = LocalDateTime.parse("2017-12-24 22:51:34",
DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("uuuu-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"));
String formattedDate = ldt.format(getLocalizedDateFormatter(Locale.UK));
Question: Can I use JSR-310 on Android?
Yes you can. It just requires at least Java 6.
In Java 8 and later the new API comes built-in.
In Java 6 and 7 get the ThreeTen Backport, the backport of the new classes (ThreeTen for JSR 310).
On Android, use the Android edition of ThreeTen Backport. It’s called ThreeTenABP.
In the latter two cases, make sure to add the appropriate edition of the backport library to your project, use the links below, and to import the classes I use from org.threeten.bp and org.threeten.bp.format.
Links
Oracle tutorial: Date Time, explaining how to use java.time.
ThreeTen Backport project
ThreeTenABP, Android edition of ThreeTen Backport
Question: How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project, with a very thorough explanation.
Java Specification Request (JSR) 310, where the modern date and time API was first described.

Please try to use
getDisplayName(...) method
In order to get more information you had better go through this documentation
Editted
More sufficiently you can try this way:
int monthOfYear = Calendar.JULY; // 6
String monthName = new
DateFormatSymbols(Locale.getDefault()).getShortMonths()[monthOfYear];

Android parsing String to Date time with SimpleDateFormat

I have the String 11/08/2013 08:48:10
and i use SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss")
and when im parsing it throws an exception : unparseable date
what's wrong with it ?
String result = han.ExecuteUrl("http://"+han.IP+":8015/api/Values/GetLastChange");
Log.d("Dal","result date time "+result); #result is 11/08/2013 08:48:10
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
Date convertedDate = new Date();
try
{
convertedDate = dateFormat.parse(result);
}
catch (ParseException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}

Its working try parse your date like this..
String dtStart = "11/08/2013 08:48:10";
SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
try {
date = format.parse(dtStart);
System.out.println("Date ->" + date);
} catch (ParseException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}

Working code is here.
You can use below code to convert from String to Date
String myStrDate = "11/08/2013 08:48:10";
SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
try {
Date date = format.parse(myStrDate);
System.out.println(date);
} catch (ParseException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
For reverse, it means, to convert from Date to String
SimpleDateFormat myFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
try {
Date date = new Date();
String datetime = myFormat.format(date);
System.out.println("Current Date Time in give format: " + datetime);
} catch (ParseException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
For more reference, regarding Date and Time formatting. Visit developer site

java.time and ThreeTenABP
It’s not the answer that you asked for, but it should be the answer that other readers want in 2020 and onward.
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("MM/dd/uuuu HH:mm:ss");
String result = "11/08/2013 08:48:10";
LocalDateTime dateTime = LocalDateTime.parse(result, formatter);
System.out.println("Parsed date and time: " + dateTime);
Output from this snippet is:
Parsed date and time: 2013-11-08T08:48:10
The Date class that you used is poorly designed and long outdated, so don’t use that anymore. Instead I am using java.time, the modern Java date and time API. If you need a Date for a legacy API that you cannot afford to upgrade just now, the conversion is:
Instant i = dateTime.atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault()).toInstant();
Date oldfashionedDate = DateTimeUtils.toDate(i);
System.out.println("Converted to old-fashioned Date: " + oldfashionedDate);
Converted to old-fashioned Date: Fri Nov 08 08:48:10 CET 2013
What went wrong in your code?
what's wrong with it ?
The only thing wrong with your code is you’re using the notoriously troublesome SimpleDateFOrmat and the poorly designed Date class. Which wasn’t wrong when you asked the question in 2013. java.time didn’t come out until 4 months later.
Your code is running fine. One may speculate that a leading space or the like in your string has prevented parsing. If this was the problem, try parsing result.trim() rather than just result since trim() returns a string with the leading and trailing whitespace removed.
Question: Doesn’t java.time require Android API level 26?
java.time works nicely on both older and newer Android devices. It just requires at least Java 6.
In Java 8 and later and on newer Android devices (from API level 26) the modern API comes built-in. Only in this case the conversion to Date is a little simpler: Date.from(i).
In non-Android Java 6 and 7 get the ThreeTen Backport, the backport of the modern classes (ThreeTen for JSR 310; see the links at the bottom).
On (older) Android use the Android edition of ThreeTen Backport. It’s called ThreeTenABP. And make sure you import the date and time classes from org.threeten.bp with subpackages.
Links
Oracle tutorial: Date Time explaining how to use java.time.
Java Specification Request (JSR) 310, where java.time was first described.
ThreeTen Backport project, the backport of java.time to Java 6 and 7 (ThreeTen for JSR-310).
ThreeTenABP, Android edition of ThreeTen Backport
Question: How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project, with a very thorough explanation.

How to get the weekday of a Date?

I want to get the day of week from the Java Date object when I have an array of Date in String with me.
SimpleDateFormat sourceDateformat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
public String[] temp_date;
public Int[] day = new Int[5];
Date[] d1= new Date[5];
Calendar[] cal= new Calendar[5]
try {
d1[i]= sourceDateformat.parse(temp_date[i].toString());
cal[i].setTime(d1[i]); // its not compiling this line..showing error on this line
day[i]= cal[i].get(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK);
}
catch (ParseException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
Does anyone know the answer to this?

You can get the day-integer like that:
Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
c.setTime(yourdate); // yourdate is an object of type Date
int dayOfWeek = c.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK); // this will for example return 3 for tuesday
If you need the output to be "Tue" rather than 3, instead of going through a calendar, just reformat the string: new SimpleDateFormat("EE").format(date) (EE meaning "day of week, short version")
Taken from here: How to determine day of week by passing specific date?

// kotlin
val calendar = Calendar.getInstance()
val dateInfo = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.FULL).format(calendar.time)
data.text = dateInfo

java.time
You can do it using DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("EEEE"):
import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.util.Locale;
public class Main {
public static void main(String args[]) {
// Test
System.out.println(getWeekDayName("2021-04-30"));
}
public static String getWeekDayName(String s) {
DateTimeFormatter dtfInput = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("u-M-d", Locale.ENGLISH);
DateTimeFormatter dtfOutput = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("EEEE", Locale.ENGLISH);
return LocalDate.parse(s, dtfInput).format(dtfOutput);
}
}
Output:
Friday
Alternatively, you can get it using LocalDate#getDayOfWeek:
import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.time.format.TextStyle;
import java.util.Locale;
public class Main {
public static void main(String args[]) {
// Test
System.out.println(getWeekDayName("2021-04-30"));
}
public static String getWeekDayName(String s) {
DateTimeFormatter dtfInput = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("u-M-d", Locale.ENGLISH);
return LocalDate.parse(s, dtfInput).getDayOfWeek().getDisplayName(TextStyle.FULL, Locale.ENGLISH);
}
}
Output:
Friday
Learn more about the the modern date-time API* from Trail: Date Time.
* 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.

This is one of the many things that have become a lot easier with the advent of java.time, the modern Java date and time API.
String tempDate = "2020-03-29";
LocalDate date = LocalDate.parse(tempDate);
DayOfWeek day = date.getDayOfWeek();
System.out.println(day);
Output:
SUNDAY
Of course we now have got an enum for the days of the week. There’s no longer any reason to fiddle with integers and having to remember on what day of week they begin and whether the days are numbered from 0 or 1.
I am expoiting the fact that your expected input format (yyyy-MM-dd in your code) is ISO 8601, the default for java.time, so we don’t need to specify any formatter explicitly.
Question: Doesn’t java.time require Android API level 26?
java.time works nicely on both older and newer Android devices. It just requires at least Java 6.
In Java 8 and later and on newer Android devices (from API level 26) the modern API comes built-in.
In non-Android Java 6 and 7 get the ThreeTen Backport, the backport of the modern classes (ThreeTen for JSR 310; see the links at the bottom).
On (older) Android use the Android edition of ThreeTen Backport. It’s called ThreeTenABP. And make sure you import the date and time classes from org.threeten.bp with subpackages.
Links
Oracle tutorial: Date Time explaining how to use java.time.
Java Specification Request (JSR) 310, where java.time was first described.
ThreeTen Backport project, the backport of java.time to Java 6 and 7 (ThreeTen for JSR-310).
ThreeTenABP, Android edition of ThreeTen Backport
Question: How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project, with a very thorough explanation.
Wikipedia article: ISO 8601

In Kotlin, just do this:
val yourDateStr = "2021-01-01"
val df = DateFormat.parse(yourDateStr)
val weedDay = df.getWeekDay(yourTimeZone)

the below code works, depending on what number you enter in the DAY_OF_WEEK, that returns the specific weekday, in this example it always returns a future date and day will always be Tuesday.
DAY_OF_WEEK
public static String getTodaysDateAndTime(){
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, 5);
cal.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK, 2);
Date date = cal.getTime();
SimpleDateFormat dateformat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss");
String futureDate = dateformat.format(date);
System.out.println(futureDate);
return futureDate;
}

Split date/time strings

I have a ReST service which downloads information about events in a persons calendar...
When it returns the date and time, it returns them as a string
e.g. date = "12/8/2012" & time = "11:25 am"
To put this into the android calendar, I need to do the following:
Calendar beginTime = Calendar.getInstance();
beginTime.set(year, month, day, hour, min);
startMillis = beginTime.getTimeInMillis();
intent.put(Events.DTSTART, startMillis);
How can I split the date and time variables so that they are useable in the "beginTime.set() " method?

I don't thinks you really need how to split the string, in your case it should be 'how to get time in milliseconds from date string', here is an example:
import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;
public class DateTest {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String date = "12/8/2012";
String time = "11:25 am";
DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm a");
try {
Date dt = df.parse(date + " " + time);
Calendar ca = Calendar.getInstance();
ca.setTime(dt);
System.out.println(ca.getTimeInMillis());
} catch (ParseException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

Try this:
String date = "12/8/2012";
String time = "11:25 am";
String[] date1 = date.split("/");
String[] time1 = time.split(":");
String[] time2 = time1[1].split(" "); // to remove am/pm
Calendar beginTime = Calendar.getInstance();
beginTime.set(Integer.parseInt(date1[2]), Integer.parseInt(date1[1]), Integer.parseInt(date1[0]), Integer.parseInt(time1[0]), Integer.parseInt(time2[0]));
startMillis = beginTime.getTimeInMillis();
intent.put(Events.DTSTART, startMillis);
Hope this helps.

Assuming you get your date in String format (if not, convert it!) and then this:
String date = "12/8/2012";
String[] dateParts = date.split("/");
String day = dateParts[0];
String month = dateParts[1];
Similarly u can split time as well!

You can see an example of split method here : How to split a string in Java
Then simply use the array for your parameter eg: array[0] for year and etc..

Use SimpleDateFormat (check api docs). If you provide proper time pattern it will be able to convert string into Date instantly.

This is just a Idea, you can do some thing like this without splitting
DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm a");
Date date = formatter.parse("12/8/2012 11:25 am");
Calendar cal=Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTime(date);

java.time either through desugaring or through ThreeTenABP
Consider using java.time, the modern Java date and time API, for your date and time work. With java.time it’s straightforward to parse your two strings for date and time individually and then combine date and time into one object using LoalDate.atTime().
The way I read your code you are really after a count of milliseconds since the epoch. So this is what I am giving you in the first snippet. Feel free to take it apart and use only the lines you need.
DateTimeFormatter dateFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("d/M/u");
DateTimeFormatter timeFormatter = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
.parseCaseInsensitive()
.appendPattern("h:mm a")
.toFormatter(Locale.ENGLISH);
String dateString = "12/8/2012";
String timeString = "11:25 am";
LocalDate date = LocalDate.parse(dateString, dateFormatter);
LocalTime time = LocalTime.parse(timeString, timeFormatter);
long startMillis = date
.atTime(time)
.atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault())
.toInstant()
.toEpochMilli();
System.out.println(startMillis);
When running in my time zone (at UTC offset +02:00 in August) the output is:
1344763500000
For anyone reading along that does need the individual numbers from the two strings, getting those is straightforward too. For example:
int year = date.getYear();
Month month = date.getMonth();
int monthNumber = date.getMonthValue();
int dayOfMonth = date.getDayOfMonth();
int hourOfDay = time.getHour();
int hourWithinAmOrPm = time.get(ChronoField.HOUR_OF_AMPM);
int minute = time.getMinute();
System.out.format("Year %d month %s or %d day %d hour %d or %d AM/PM minute %d%n",
year, month, monthNumber, dayOfMonth, hourOfDay, hourWithinAmOrPm, minute);
Year 2012 month AUGUST or 8 day 12 hour 11 or 11 AM/PM minute 25
Question: Doesn’t java.time require Android API level 26?
java.time works nicely on both older and newer Android devices. It just requires at least Java 6.
In Java 8 and later and on newer Android devices (from API level 26) the modern API comes built-in.
In non-Android Java 6 and 7 get the ThreeTen Backport, the backport of the modern classes (ThreeTen for JSR 310; see the links at the bottom).
On older Android either use desugaring or the Android edition of ThreeTen Backport. It’s called ThreeTenABP. In the latter case make sure you import the date and time classes from org.threeten.bp with subpackages.
Links
Oracle tutorial: Date Time explaining how to use java.time.
Java Specification Request (JSR) 310, where java.time was first described.
ThreeTen Backport project, the backport of java.time to Java 6 and 7 (ThreeTen for JSR-310).
Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring
ThreeTenABP, Android edition of ThreeTen Backport
Question: How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project, with a very thorough explanation.