Java date format real simple

Question

how would you write te date if i have a date and all i want is the month and the day like this (mm/dd) and then turn the month like this July, 08

Answer 1

Let me see if I understood well.

You have a date like "07/08" and you want "July, 08"?

You could try SimpleDateFormat

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;

class Test {
    public static void main( String [] args ) throws ParseException  {

        SimpleDateFormat in  = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd");
        SimpleDateFormat out = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM, dd");

        System.out.println( out.format( in.parse("07/08") ) );

        // Verbose 
        //String input = "07/09";           
        //Date  date = in.parse( input );  
        //String output = out.format( date );
        //System.out.println( output );
    }
}

Answer 2

The SimpleDateFormat is your friend here. If you already have a java.util.Date object, just format it using the desired pattern (refer to the javadoc for details on date and time patterns):

SimpleDateFormat out = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM, dd");
String s = out.format(date); // date is your existing Date object here

(EDIT: I'm adding some details as the original question is unclear and I may have missed the real goal.

If you have a String representation of a date in a given format (e.g. MM/dd) and want to transform the representation, you'll need 2 SimpleDateFormat as pointed out by others: one to parse the String into a Date and another one to format the Date.

SimpleDateFormat in = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd");
Date date = in.parse(dateAsString); // dateAsString is your String representation here

Then use the code snippet seen above to format it.)

Answer 3

Use:

Format formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM, dd");
String s = formatter.format(date);

Formatting a Date Using a Custom Format

Answer 4

the month and the day like this (mm/dd) and then turn the month like this July, 08

So you want to convert MM/dd to MMMM, dd? So you start with a String and you end up with a String? Then you need another SimpleDateFormat instance with the first pattern.

String dateString1 = "07/08";
Date date = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd").parse(dateString1);
String dateString2 = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM, dd").format(date);
System.out.println(dateString2); // July, 08 (monthname depends on locale!).