Why I can't parse a SimpleDateFormat with pattern "MMMMM dd" in Java?

Question

I need to parse a string like "February 12, 1981" as a Date. I use SimpleDateFormat. But if I do:

new SimpleDateFormat("MMMMM dd, yyyy").parse("February 12, 1981")

I get java.text.ParseException.

I tried to reduce it to see where the problem is. First:

new SimpleDateFormat("MMMMM").parse("February")

works. Then:

new SimpleDateFormat("MMMMM dd").parse("February 12")

doesn't work anymore. Anyone know why? I also tried new SimpleDateFormat("MMMMM' 'dd").

I'm using JRE 1.6.0_06.

[Never use SimpleDateFormat or DateTimeFormatter without a Locale](https://stackoverflow.com/a/65544056/10819573) — Arvind Kumar Avinash, May 30 '21 at 08:44

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 01 '08 at 18:13

7

What version of JDK/JRE are you using?

This works fine for me with 1.4.2_14, 1.5.0_16, and 1.6.0_07:

SimpleDateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMMM dd, yyyy");
Date parsed = df.parse("February 12, 1981");
System.out.println(parsed);

output:

Thu Feb 12 00:00:00 EST 1981

answered Oct 01 '08 at 18:13

matt b

Thanks! It turns out in 1.6.0_06 it doesn't work. I ask a friend who has 1.6.0_10 to try it and it worked. So it must have been a bug fixed in 1.6.0_07. :-) – asterite Oct 01 '08 at 18:19
I don't see it listed under the list of bugfixes in 1.6.0_07, but hey as long as it works... http://java.sun.com/javase/6/webnotes/ReleaseNotes.html#160_07 – matt b Oct 01 '08 at 18:24
Grrr... I just found out SimpleDateFormat parses localized dates, and my computer locale is, don't know why, Spanish, even though everything in the screen is in English. – asterite Oct 01 '08 at 18:35
You might want to update the original question to include the actual fix (your incorrect locale setting). – matt b Oct 02 '08 at 16:11

1 Answers1