Is there a nice and easy way to convert a Java Date into XML date string format and vice versa?
Cheers,
Andez
Original answer
I am guessing here that by "XML Date Format" you mean something like "2010-11-04T19:14Z". It is actually ISO 8601 format.
You can convert it using SimpleDateFormat, as others suggested, FastDateFormat or using Joda Time which was I believe especially created for this purpose.
Edit: code samples and more
As earnshae stated in a comment, this answer could be improved with examples.
First, we have to make clear that the original answer is pretty outdated. It's because Java 8 introduced the classes to manipulate date and time - java.time package should be of interest. If you are lucky enough to be using Java 8, you should use one of them. However, these things are surprisingly difficult to get right.
LocalDate(Time) that isn't
Consider this example:
LocalDateTime dateTime = LocalDateTime.parse("2016-03-23T18:21");
System.out.println(dateTime); // 2016-03-23T18:21
At first it may seem that what we're using here is a local (to the user date and time). However, if you dare to ask, you'll get different result:
System.out.println(dateTime.getChronology()); // ISO
This actually, the ISO time. I believe it should read 'UTC' but nonetheless this has no notion of local time zone. So we should consider it universal.
Please notice, that there is no "Z" at the end of the string we are parsing. Should you add anything apart of date and time, you'll be greeted with java.time.format.DateTimeParseException. So it seems that this class is of no use if we want to parse ISO8601 string.
ZonedDateTime to the rescue
Fortunately, there is a class that allows for parsing ISO8601 strings - it's a java.time.ZonedDateTime.
ZonedDateTime zonedDateTime = ZonedDateTime.parse("2016-03-23T18:21+01:00");
System.out.println(zonedDateTime); // 2016-03-23T18:21+01:00
ZonedDateTime zonedDateTimeZulu = ZonedDateTime.parse("2016-03-23T18:21Z");
System.out.println(zonedDateTimeZulu); // 2016-03-23T18:21Z
The only problem here is, you actually need to use time zone designation. Trying to parse raw date time (i.e. "2016-03-23T18:21") will result in already mentioned RuntimeException. Depending on the situation you'd have to choose between LocalDateTime and ZonedDateTime.
Of course you can easily convert between those two, so it should not be a problem:
System.out.println(zonedDateTimeZulu.toLocalDateTime()); // 2016-03-23T18:21
// Zone conversion
ZonedDateTime cetDateTime = zonedDateTimeZulu.toLocalDateTime()
.atZone(ZoneId.of("CET"));
System.out.println(cetDateTime); // 2016-03-23T18:21+01:00[CET]
I recommend using this classes nowadays. However, if your job description includes archeology (meaning you are not lucky enough to be working with more than 2 year old Java 8...), you may need to use something else.
The joy of SimpleDateFormat
I am not a very big fan of https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html, but sometimes you just have no other choice. Problem is, it is not thread-safe and it will throw a checked Exception (namely ParseException) in your face if it dislikes something. Therefore the code snippet is rather ugly:
private Object lock = new Object();
// ...
try {
synchronized (lock) {
// Either "2016-03-23T18:21+01:00" or "2016-03-23T18:21Z"
// will be correctly parsed (mind the different meaning though)
Date date = dateFormat.parse("2016-03-23T18:21Z");
System.out.println(date); // Wed Mar 23 19:21:00 CET 2016
}
} catch (ParseException e) {
LOG.error("Date time parsing exception", e);
}
FastDateFormat
FastDateFormat is synchronized, therefore you can at least get rid of the synchronized block. However, it is an external dependency. But since it's the Apache Commons Lang and it is thoroughly used, I guess it is acceptable. It is actually very similar in usage to SimpleDateFormat:
FastDateFormat fastDateFormat = FastDateFormat.getInstance("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mmX");
try {
Date fastDate = fastDateFormat.parse("2016-03-23T18:21+01:00");
System.out.println(fastDate);
} catch (ParseException e) {
LOG.error("Date time parsing exception", e);
}
JodaTime
With Joda-Time you may think that following works:
DateTimeFormatter parser = ISODateTimeFormat.dateTimeParser();
LocalDateTime dateTime = LocalDateTime.parse("2016-03-23T20:48+01:00", parser);
System.out.println(dateTime); // 2016-03-23T20:48:00.000
Unfortunately, no matter what you put at last position (Z, +03:00, ...) the result will be the same. Clearly, it isn't working.
Well, you really should be parsing it directly:
DateTimeFormatter parser = ISODateTimeFormat.dateTimeParser();
DateTime dateTime = parser.parseDateTime("2016-03-23T21:12:23+04:00");
System.out.println(dateTime); // 2016-03-23T18:12:23.000+01:00
Now it will be OK. Please note, that unlike one of other answers, I used dateTimeParser() and not dateTime(). I noticed subtle, but important difference in behavior between them (Joda-Time 2.9.2). But, I leave it to the reader to test it and confirm.
As already suggested use SimpleDateFormat.
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss");
String date = sdf.format(new Date());
System.out.println(date);
Date d = sdf.parse(date);
My guess is that the format/pattern that your looking for is yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss
Also have a look at http://www.w3schools.com/schema/schema_dtypes_date.asp
Using Joda Time you would do the following:
DateTimeFormatter fmt = ISODateTimeFormat.dateTime(); // ISO8601 (XML) Date/time
DateTime dt = fmt.parseDateTime("2000-01-01T12:00:00+100"); // +1hr time zone
System.out.println(fmt.print(dt)); // Prints in ISO8601 format
Thread safe, immutable and simple.
The Perfect method, use XMLGregorianCalendar:
GregorianCalendar calendar = new GregorianCalendar();
calendar.setTime(v);
DatatypeFactory df = DatatypeFactory.newInstance();
XMLGregorianCalendar dateTime = df.newXMLGregorianCalendar(calendar);
return dateTime.toString();
Just by using SimpleDateFormat in java we can do this...
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ");
Date date = sdf.parse("2011-12-31T15:05:50+1000");
I would recommend to use the java built in class javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter. It can handle conversion to and from most of the xml simple types. It is a little bit cumbersome for dates that you have to go through a Calendar object but on the other hand it handles all variants of zone information that can occur in a xml datetime field.
From xml:
Calendar c = DatatypeConverter.parseDateTime("2015-10-21T13:25");
Date d = c.getTime();
To xml:
Date yourDate = new Date()
Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
c.setTime(yourDate);
String xmlDateTime = DatatypeConverter.printDateTime(c);
EDIT
The DatatypeConverter class is no longer publicly visible in Java 9 and above since it belongs to the javax.xml.bind package. See this question for more information and possible solutions. The solution proposed by loic vaugeois to use XmlGregorianCalendar is much better in this case.
You can parse and format dates to and from any format using SimpleDateFormat
To comply with ISO8601, the timezone must be in the format +HH:MM or - HH:MM
With Simpledateformat you must use XXX instead of Z (see NovelGuy answer)
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssXXX");
Without knowing exactly what format you need, the generic response is: you're going to want DateFormat or SimpleDateFormat. There is a nice tutorial on both here.
Related
I know this has been asked several times and I am risking a downvote/duplicate close, but most of the questions posted here were resolved by chaing YYYY into yyyy..so, searching does not really help :/
These are the given timestamps inside the block
date new Block: 2017-11-02T06:17:05.079481
date old Block: 2017-11-02T06:17:04.608960
My conversion code:
public static Date getDate(JSONObject block){
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS");
try {
return sdf.parse(block.get("timestamp").toString());
} catch (ParseException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
return new Date(0);
}
}
And this is the result of parse
date new block: Thu Nov 02 06:18:24 KST 2017
date old block: Thu Nov 02 06:27:12 KST 2017
How is that possible? The new block was created after the old block, as seen in the timestamp. but now it is the other way around
How is that possible? The new block was created before the old block, as seen in the timestamp. but now it is the other way around
S in a SimpleDateFormat format string always represents milliseconds - not just "fractions of a second" which is what you're assuming at the moment.
Your "new" block is being parsed as adding 79481 milliseconds whereas the "old" block has 608960.
That explains the results, but doesn't give you a way forward. There are two options here:
Use java.time.* - this is a much more modern API, with nanosecond precision instead of millisecond precision.
Drop the last three characters of your inputs, and parse to only millisecond precision.
Following up on Jon Skeet’s knowledgable answer, using java.time isn’t hard. The date-time format from your JSON block is ISO 8601, the standard format for exchange of date and time data, and the java.time classes parse this format as their default, that is, without the need for an explicit format:
String blockTimestamp = "2017-11-02T06:17:05.079481";
LocalDateTime dateTime = LocalDateTime.parse(blockTimestamp);
If you try printing the resulting dateTime, you will again see its default format, ISO 8601, since this is also what its toString method produces: 2017-11-02T06:17:05.079481.
The potential downside of LocalDateTime is it doesn’t represent an unambiguous point on the timeline. So if you know in which time zone to interpret the date and time, you will probably want to convert it to a ZonedDateTime, for example:
ZoneId koreaTimeZone = ZoneId.of("Asia/Seoul");
ZonedDateTime koreaDateTime = dateTime.atZone(koreaTimeZone);
This yields 2017-11-02T06:17:05.079481+09:00[Asia/Seoul].
In your Simple Date Format, you need to change 'DD' to lowercase 'dd'
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS");
This will hopefully solve your problem.
EDIT: Same is the case with hours. **
Replace **'HH' with 'hh' (lowercase).
Thanks
This question already has answers here:
java.util.Date format conversion yyyy-mm-dd to mm-dd-yyyy
(8 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
I am trying to change the format of Date objects, I am trying to do it in this way:
for(Date date : dates){
DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd");
String formatterDate = formatter.format(date);
Date d = formatter.parse(formatter.format(date));
}
But this does not have any effect on the d object, it is still with the old format, can't really understand why it is like that.
Please try to keep two concepts apart: your data and the presentation of the data to your user (or formatting for other purposes like inclusion in JSON). An int holding the value 7 can be presented as (formatted into) 7, 07, 007 or +7 while still just holding the same value without any formatting information — the formatting lies outside the int. Just the same, a Date holds a point in time, it can be presented as (formatted into) “June 1st 2017, 12:46:01.169”, “2017/06/01” or “1 Jun 2017” while still just holding the same value without any formatting information — the formatting lies outside the Date.
Depending on your requirements, one option is you store your date as a Date (or better, an instance of one of the modern date and time classes like LocalDate) and keep a formatter around so you can format it every time you need to show it to the user. If this won’t work and you need to store the date in a specific format, then store it as a String.
Java 8 (7, 6) date and time API
Now I have been ranting about using the newer Java date and time classes in the comments, so it might be unfair not to show you that they work. The question tries to format as yyyy-MM-dd, which we may do with the following piece of code.
DateTimeFormatter dateFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("uuuu/MM/dd");
for (LocalDate date : localDates) {
String formatterDate = date.format(dateFormatter);
System.out.println(formatterDate);
}
In one run I got
2017/05/23
2017/06/01
Should your objects in the list have other types than LocalDate, most other newer date and time types can be formatted in exactly the same way using the same DateTimeFormatter. Instant is a little special in this respect because it doesn’t contain a date, but you may do for example myInstant.atZone(ZoneId.of("Europe/Oslo")).format(dateFormatter) to obtain the date it was/will be in Oslo’s time zone at that instant.
The modern classes were introduced in Java 8 and are enhanced a bit in Java 9. They have been backported to Java 6 and 7 in the ThreeTen Backport with a special edition for Android, ThreeTenABP. So I really see no reason why you should not prefer to use them in your own code.
Try this one.
String formattedDate = null;
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(format you want);
formattedDate = sdf.format( the date you want to format );
return formattedDate;
some not best solution, but it works: this method will convert Date object to String of any pattern you need
public static void format(Date date){
String pattern = "MMM d yyyy";
LocalDateTime localDate = date.toInstant().atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault()).toLocalDateTime();
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern(pattern);
String result = formatter.format(localDate);
// new Date() -> Jun 1 2017
}
SimpleDateFormat is useful while converting Date to String or vice-versa. java.util.Date format will always remain same. If you want to display it in standalone application then use date.getxxx() methods and choose your design.
I'm trying to understand how the Java 8 date/time framework works.
I'm actually using SimpleDateFormat this way to return milliseconds given a string:
new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMddHHmmssSSS").parse(builder.toString()).getTime();
What would it become with the new classes in Java 8?
The pattern you specified cannot work in Java-8. The problem has been fixed in Java-9 with seemingly no backport, but Java-9 is not yet released.
Possible workarounds for Java-8 either include awkward string preprocessing, that is inserting a decimal separator before the fraction part or downloading other 3rd-party-libraries (where the parsers are probably still quicker than in Java-9 according to my observations):
String preprocessing
String mydate = "20130812214600025";
String adjustedInput = new StringBuilder(mydate).insert(14, '.').toString();
ZonedDateTime date =
ZonedDateTime.parse(
adjustedInput,
DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyyMMddHHmmss.SSS").withZone(ZoneOffset.systemDefault()));
System.out.println(date); // 2013-08-12T21:46:00.025+02:00[Europe/Berlin]
System.out.println(date.toInstant().toEpochMilli()); // 1376336760025
Joda-Time:
String mydate = "20130812214600025";
DateTime date =
DateTime.parse(
mydate,
DateTimeFormat.forPattern("yyyyMMddHHmmssSSS"));
System.out.println(date); // 2013-08-12T21:46:00.025+02:00
System.out.println(date.toInstant().getMillis()); // 1376336760025
My library Time4J
long millisSinceUnix =
ChronoFormatter.ofPattern(
"yyyyMMddHHmmssSSS",
PatternType.CLDR,
Locale.ROOT,
Moment.axis(TemporalType.MILLIS_SINCE_UNIX)
).with(Timezone.ofSystem()).parse(mydate).longValue();
System.out.println(millisSinceUnix); // 1376336760025
For your information: The timezone is needed because we convert local details like year, month, day, hour etc to a global instant but your input does not contain any zone or offset information. Therefore it is necessary to supply the formatter with a zone or offset.
As you can see, SimpleDateFormat and Joda-Time use the system timezone by default (implicitly). However, the java.time-API and Time4J require to explicitly specify a timezone (IMHO the cleaner design).
You can use:
ZonedDateTime date = ZonedDateTime.parse("mydate",DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyyMMddHHmmssSSS"));
System.out.println(date.toInstant().toEpochMilli());
I need to convert JsDate to java.util.Date. I searched but I couldn't find anything. So could you help me with this problem?
Edit: I do this conversion process on GWT screen. I have Datepicker on screen and it gives me JsDate value when I use it's getValue() method. So I'm supposed to put this value into the property of an object which has Date type.
ObjectName.setDate(PickerName.getValue());
I hope my edit will be more clear.
Edit2:
This line is the solution of my problem:
myObject.setDate(new Date((long) myPicker.getValue().getTime()));
The best way of dates conversion is using time in milliseconds, UTC. Both JS Date object and java.util.Date class support conversion to milliseconds (getTime()) and instantiating from milliseconds (using constructor).
You can create a java.util.Date object from the 'time since epoch' value of the JS Date
javascript
var d = new Date().getTime();
java
// get value from client (ajax, form, etc), and construct in Date object
long valueFromClient = ...
Date date = new Date(valueFromClient);
String formatted = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss").format(date);
If people like me are forced to parse a JS-formatted date string (as the result of (new Date()).toString() in JavaScript), here is the SimpleDateFormat spec I used:
DateFormat jsfmt = new SimpleDateFormat("EE MMM d y H:m:s 'GMT'Z (zz)");
If you have control of the producer of the dates, I concur that using timestamps or at least .toUTCString() is definitely more robust.
You may want this:
java:
String jsDate="2013-3-22 10:13:00";
Date javaDate=new SimpleDateFormat("yy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss").parse(jsDate);
System.out.println(javaDate);
ISO 8601 and java.time
ISO 8601 is the international standard for date and time including date and time formats. About any programming language has support for it, including both JavaScript and Java.
In JavaScript produce a string in ISO 8601 format using Date.toISOString(). We don’t need any formatter.
var d = new Date();
var n = d.toISOString();
console.log(n);
The result is somewhat human readable as long as you remember that it’s in UTC, denoted by the trailing Z.
In Java parse the string using Instant.parse(). We don’t need to specify any formatter here either.
String stringFromJavaScript = "2021-07-12T05:54:03.365Z";
Instant inst = Instant.parse(stringFromJavaScript);
System.out.println(inst);
Output:
2021-07-12T05:54:03.365Z
The question asked for a java.util.Date for the result from a date picker. We should avoid using java.util.Date for this both because despite the name a Date does not represent a date and because the Date class is poorly designed and long outdated. For a date without time of day a LocalDate is appropriate:
LocalDate date = inst.atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault()).toLocalDate();
System.out.println(date);
In my time zone the output was:
2021-07-12
The conversion is time zone dependent and will only be correct if the default time zone of the JVM (or which time zone you pass to atZone()) is the same as used by the date picker.
If you do need a Date for a legacy API not yet upgraded to java.time:
Date oldfashionedDate = Date.from(inst);
System.out.println(oldfashionedDate);
Mon Jul 12 07:54:03 CEST 2021
Links
Wikipedia article: ISO 8601
Oracle tutorial: Date Time explaining how to use java.time.
I would suggest using the DateFormat parse method (doc can be found here). It can parse a string representation of a date and return a java.util.Date.
JS Date --
new Date()
Wed Aug 14 2019 14:54:38 GMT+0530 (India Standard Time)
Java Date --
new Date().toISOString()
"2019-08-14T09:25:50.136Z"
How do I formate a java.sql Timestamp to my liking ? ( to a string, for display purposes)
java.sql.Timestamp extends java.util.Date. You can do:
String s = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy").format(myTimestamp);
Or to also include time:
String s = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss").format(myTimestamp);
Use String.format (or java.util.Formatter):
Timestamp timestamp = ...
String.format("%1$TD %1$TT", timestamp)
EDIT:
please see the documentation of Formatter to know what TD and TT means: click on java.util.Formatter
The first 'T' stands for:
't', 'T' date/time Prefix for date and time conversion characters.
and the character following that 'T':
'T' Time formatted for the 24-hour clock as "%tH:%tM:%tS".
'D' Date formatted as "%tm/%td/%ty".
If you're using MySQL and want the database itself to perform the conversion, use this:
DATE_FORMAT(date,format)
If you prefer to format using Java, use this:
java.text.SimpleDateFormat
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("M/dd/yyyy");
dateFormat.format( new Date() );
For this particular question, the standard suggestion of java.text.SimpleDateFormat works, but has the unfortunate side effect that SimpleDateFormat is not thread-safe and can be the source of particularly nasty problems since it'll corrupt your output in multi-threaded scenarios, and you won't get any exceptions!
I would strongly recommend looking at Joda for anything like this. Why ? It's a much richer and more intuitive time/date library for Java than the current library (and the basis of the up-and-coming new standard Java date/time library, so you'll be learning a soon-to-be-standard API).
Use a DateFormat. In an internationalized application, use the format provide by getInstance. If you want to explicitly control the format, create a new SimpleDateFormat yourself.
java.time
I am providing the modern answer. The Timestamp class is a hack on top of the already poorly designed java.util.Date class and is long outdated. I am assuming, though, that you are getting a Timestamp from a legacy API that you cannot afford to upgrade to java.time just now. When you do that, convert it to a modern Instant and do further processing from there.
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofLocalizedDateTime(FormatStyle.MEDIUM)
.withLocale(Locale.GERMAN);
Timestamp oldfashionedTimestamp = new Timestamp(1_567_890_123_456L);
ZonedDateTime dateTime = oldfashionedTimestamp.toInstant()
.atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault());
String desiredFormat = dateTime.format(formatter);
System.out.println(desiredFormat);
Output in my time zone:
07.09.2019 23:02:03
Pick how long or short of a format you want by specifying FormatStyle.SHORT, .MEDIUM, .LONG or .FULL. Pick your own locale where I put Locale.GERMAN. And pick your desired time zone, for example ZoneId.of("Europe/Oslo"). A Timestamp is a point in time without time zone, so we need a time zone to be able to convert it into year, month, day, hour, minute, etc. If your Timestamp comes from a database value of type timestamp without time zone (generally not recommended, but unfortunately often seen), ZoneId.systemDefault() is likely to give you the correct result. Another and slightly simpler option in this case is instead to convert to a LocalDateTime using oldfashionedTimestamp.toLocalDateTime() and then format the LocalDateTime in the same way as I did with the ZonedDateTime.
String timeFrSSHStr = timeFrSSH.toString();