Java parsing String to LocalDateTime without providing time

Question

Basically I have a field ``` private LocalDateTime date; ``` which is parsed from String. It works fine when provided String has time appended at the end but will throw an exception if it has not. ``` DateTimeFormatter formatter = null; if (value.matches("\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2} \d{2}:\d{2}")) { formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm"); } else if (value.matches("\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}")) { formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd"); } // Throws an exception for pattern "yyyy-MM-dd" date = LocalDateTime.parse(value, formatter); ``` And the exception itself: ``` java.time.format.DateTimeParseException: Text '2000-06-29' could not be parsed: Unable to obtain LocalDateTime from TemporalAccessor: {},ISO resolved to 2000-06-29 of type java.time.format.Parsed at pl.empirica.swissborg.service.util.CsvBeanUtils.copyList(CsvBeanUtils.java:75) ~[classes/:na] at pl.empirica.swissborg.service.csv.CsvReaderService.persistCsvData(CsvReaderService.java:101) ~[classes/:na] a…

Accepted Answer

Your issue is that a LocalDateTime needs a time!

You have two main options:

- use two formatters like you do, but the second branch should be `LocalDateTime d = LocalDate.parse(value, formatter).atStartOfDay()` (for example)

- create a formatter that can handle both formats

The second option could look like:

```
DateTimeFormatter fmt = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
        .appendPattern("yyyy-MM-dd")
        .optionalStart()
        .appendPattern(" HH:mm")
        .optionalEnd()
        .parseDefaulting(ChronoField.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0)
        .parseDefaulting(ChronoField.MINUTE_OF_HOUR, 0)
        .toFormatter();
```

which can parse `2016-10-01` and `2016-10-01 10:15`.

Java parsing String to LocalDateTime without providing time

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