Date formatting according to country habbits

Question

We create J2SE application that has to format the date and time according to custom the country from which users come from. I want to ask how to solve this thing in Java? Probably I'll use SimpleDateFormat, but I wonder if it is possible to get format string in somehow simpler way than to have all format strings for each country separately.

You can use DateFormat With locale if you have to show the date in same format for each country .i.e . DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.MEDIUM, locale).format(new Date()); — Shehzad, Apr 13 '12 at 15:00

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 13 '12 at 15:00

2

DateFormat already allows you to do this - just use DateTimeFormat.getDateTimeInstance(dateStyle, timeStyle, locale) or something similar, depending on your needs.

answered Apr 13 '12 at 15:00

Jon Skeet

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yes, I tried it and this is the solution to my problem, thank you! – jnemecz Apr 13 '12 at 15:26

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 18 '21 at 16:38

java.time

The java.util Date-Time API and their formatting API, SimpleDateFormat are outdated and error-prone. It is recommended to stop using them completely and switch to the modern Date-Time API^*.

Solution using java.time, the modern Date-Time API:

Use DateTimeFormatter.#ofLocalizedDate to get a locale specific date format for the ISO chronology.

Demo:

import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.ZoneId;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.time.format.FormatStyle;
import java.util.Locale;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        DateTimeFormatter dtfDateFull = DateTimeFormatter.ofLocalizedDate(FormatStyle.FULL)
                .localizedBy(new Locale("cs", "CZ"));
        DateTimeFormatter dtfDateMedium = DateTimeFormatter.ofLocalizedDate(FormatStyle.MEDIUM)
                .localizedBy(new Locale("cs", "CZ"));
        DateTimeFormatter dtfDateShort = DateTimeFormatter.ofLocalizedDate(FormatStyle.SHORT)
                .localizedBy(new Locale("cs", "CZ"));

        LocalDate date = LocalDate.now(ZoneId.of("Europe/Prague"));

        System.out.println(date.format(dtfDateFull));
        System.out.println(date.format(dtfDateMedium));
        System.out.println(date.format(dtfDateShort));
    }
}

Output from a sample run:

neděle 18. července 2021
18. 7. 2021
18.07.21

ONLINE DEMO

Learn more about the modern Date-Time API from Trail: Date Time.

^{* For any reason, if you have to stick to Java 6 or Java 7, you can use ThreeTen-Backport which backports most of the java.time functionality to Java 6 & 7. If you are working for an Android project and your Android API level is still not compliant with Java-8, check Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring and How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project.}

Date formatting according to country habbits

2 Answers2

java.time