Java string to date conversion

Mark Devid 2337 10 Aug 2015

Can somebody recommend the best way to convert a string in the format 'January 2, 2010' to a date in java? Ultimately, I want to break out the month, the day, and the year as integers so that I can use:

Date date = new Date();
date.setMonth()..
date.setYear()..
date.setDay()..
date.setlong currentTime = date.getTime();

to convert the date into time.

Ask by Mark Devid

Updated 10 Aug 2015

1 Answers

Anonymous User 10 Aug 2015

String string = "January 2, 2010";
DateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM d, yyyy", Locale.ENGLISH);
Date date = format.parse(string);
System.out.println(date); // Sat Jan 02 00:00:00 GMT 2010

If you happen to be on Java 8 already, then use DateTimeFormatter (also here, click the link to see all predefined formatters and available format patterns; the tutorial is available here). This new API is inspired by JodaTime.

String string = "January 2, 2010";
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("MMMM d, yyyy", Locale.ENGLISH);
LocalDate date = LocalDate.parse(string, formatter);
System.out.println(date); // 2010-01-02

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