java ParseException: Unparseable date

Question

I'm trying to convert a timestamp coming from a JSON API to a relative time span string like this:

try {
                SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ");
                Date date = sdf.parse(item.getTimeStamp());
                long milliseconds = date.getTime();

                CharSequence timeAgo = DateUtils.getRelativeTimeSpanString(
                        milliseconds,
                        System.currentTimeMillis(), DateUtils.SECOND_IN_MILLIS);
                timestamp.setText(timeAgo);

            } catch (java.text.ParseException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
        }

The timestamp comes back in JSON like this: 2014-07-01T00:05:20Z

I'm throwing the exception for Unparseable date

What am I doing wrong here?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 20 '14 at 18:12

3

Z expects timezone value, change your pattern to and you don't need SSS since you don't have milliseconds in input

yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'

answered Jul 20 '14 at 18:12

jmj

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Thank you! My date is now being parsed and displayed. It's still not converting to the `timeAgo` format though. Any idea why? – settheline Jul 20 '14 at 18:26
Try changing `SECOND_IN_MILLIS` to `FORMAT_NUMERIC_DATE` – jmj Jul 20 '14 at 18:29

java ParseException: Unparseable date

1 Answers1