Java Formatting Date String

Question

I need to convert this 20140815

into 15.08.2014 and into 15.08.2014 00:00:00

How do I do that, what opportunities are there in Java

What research have you done so far, and what have you tried? Hint: SimpleDateFormat... — Jon Skeet
– Jon Skeet, Commented Aug 15, 2014 at 12:47
And Date object has no format. only String has format. You want to do string->string conversion or parsing string to Date? — Kent
– Kent, Commented Aug 15, 2014 at 12:48
i want only a string conversion / parsing and not string to date — aykon
– aykon, Commented Aug 15, 2014 at 12:52
@JonSkeet date format? Too complicated and unnecessary. This can be done with simple string manipulation. Simple==best. — Bohemian
– Bohemian ♦, Commented Aug 16, 2014 at 0:49

aioobe · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-15 12:49:10Z

4

You could use SimpleDateFormat as follows

SimpleDateFormat inputFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
SimpleDateFormat outputFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss");

Date date = inputFormat.parse("20140815");
String result = outputFormat.format(date);

answered Aug 15, 2014 at 12:49

aioobe

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1 Comment

Jon Skeet Over a year ago

It would be worth specifying both a time zone (UTC) and a Locale (e.g. US English). Even though this particular format doesn't use any locale-specific symbols, it's a good habit to get into... and as there are time zones where midnight doesn't exist, you can get some weird behaviour that way if you're not careful, too.

Bohemian · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-15 12:57:49Z

1

Why bother with Dates... just use Strings:

String output = input.replaceAll("(....)(..)(..)", "$3.$2.$1");

or

String output = input.replaceAll("(....)(..)(..)", "$3.$2.$1 00:00:00");

answered Aug 15, 2014 at 12:57

Bohemian♦

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1 Comment

Jon Skeet Over a year ago

You would bother with date parsing formatting because: a) it will validate that you really have got appropriate date; b) it invites you to actually maintain a more sensible representation (rather than string) for longer. I'm always suspicious of "convert from date format X to date format Y" tasks, because normally you should parse date-related data as soon as you can, and format it as late as you can. Those two points of code are rarely the same point, in my experience.

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