Java SimpleDateFormat for time zone with a colon separator?
date, iso8601, java
Solution
JodaTime's `DateTimeFormat` to rescue:
String dateString = "2010-03-01T00:00:00-08:00";
String pattern = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ";
DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormat.forPattern(pattern);
DateTime dateTime = dtf.parseDateTime(dateString);
System.out.println(dateTime); // 2010-03-01T04:00:00.000-04:00
(time and timezone difference in `toString()` is just because I'm at GMT-4 and didn't set locale explicitly)
If you want to end up with `java.util.Date` just use `DateTime#toDate()`:
Date date = dateTime.toDate();
Wait for JDK7 (JSR-310) JSR-310, the referrence implementation is called ThreeTen (hopefully it will make it into Java 8) if you want a better formatter in the standard Java SE API. The current `SimpleDateFormat` indeed doesn't eat the colon in the timezone notation.
Update: as per the update, you apparently don't need the timezone. This should work with `SimpleDateFormat`. Just omit it (the `Z`) in the pattern.
String dateString = "2010-03-01T00:00:00-08:00";
String pattern = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss";
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern);
Date date = sdf.parse(dateString);
System.out.println(date); // Mon Mar 01 00:00:00 BOT 2010
(which is correct as per my timezone)
Problem
I have a date in the following format: `2010-03-01T00:00:00-08:00` I have thrown the following SimpleDateFormats at it to parse it: ``` private static final SimpleDateFormat[] FORMATS = { new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ"), //ISO8601 long RFC822 zone new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssz"), //ISO8601 long long form zone new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss"), //ignore timezone new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMddHHmmssZ"), //ISO8601 short new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMddHHmm"), new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd"), //birthdate from NIST IHE C32 sample new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMM"), new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy") //just the year }; ``` I have a convenience method that uses those formats like so: ``` public static Date figureOutTheDamnDate(String wtf) { if (wtf == null) { return null; } Date retval = null; for (SimpleDateFormat sdf : FORMATS) { try { sdf.setLenient(false) retval = sdf.parse(wtf); System.out.println("Date:" + wtf + " hit on pattern:" + sdf.toPattern()); break; } catch (ParseException ex) { retval = null; continue; } } return retval; } ``` It seems to hit on the pattern `yyyyMMddHHmm` but returns the date as `Thu Dec 03 00:01:00 PST 2009`. What is the correct pattern to parse this date? UPDATE: I don't NEED the time zone parsing. I don't anticipate having time sensitive issues moving between zones, but how would I get the "-08:00" zone format to parse???? Unit test: ``` @Test public void test_date_parser() { System.out.println("\ntest_date_parser"); //month is zero based, are you effing kidding me Calendar d = new GregorianCalendar(2000, 3, 6, 13, 00, 00); assertEquals(d.getTime(), MyClass.figureOutTheDamnDate("200004061300")); assertEquals(new GregorianCalendar(1950, 0, 1).getTime(), MyClass.figureOutTheDamnDate("1950")); assertEquals(new GregorianCalendar(1997, 0, 1).getTime(), MyClass.figureOutTheDamnDate("199701")); assertEquals(new GregorianCalendar(2010, 1, 25, 15, 19, 44).getTime(), MyClass.figureOutTheDamnDate("20100225151944-0800")); //my machine happens to be in GMT-0800 assertEquals(new GregorianCalendar(2010, 1, 15, 13, 15, 00).getTime(),MyClass.figureOutTheDamnDate("2010-02-15T13:15:00-05:00")); assertEquals(new GregorianCalendar(2010, 1, 15, 18, 15, 00).getTime(), MyClass.figureOutTheDamnDate("2010-02-15T18:15:00-05:00")); assertEquals(new GregorianCalendar(2010, 2, 1).getTime(), MyClass.figureOutTheDamnDate("2010-03-01T00:00:00-08:00")); assertEquals(new GregorianCalendar(2010, 2, 1, 17, 0, 0).getTime(), MyClass.figureOutTheDamnDate("2010-03-01T17:00:00-05:00")); } ``` Output from unit test: ``` test_date_parser Date:200004061300 hit on pattern:yyyyMMddHHmm Date:1950 hit on pattern:yyyy Date:199701 hit on pattern:yyyyMM Date:20100225151944-0800 hit on pattern:yyyyMMddHHmmssZ Date:2010-02-15T13:15:00-05:00 hit on pattern:yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss Date:2010-02-15T18:15:00-05:00 hit on pattern:yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss Date:2010-03-01T00:00:00-08:00 hit on pattern:yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss Date:2010-03-01T17:00:00-05:00 hit on pattern:yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss ```