SimpleDateFormat throws ParseException

Question

Given the following String and formatter settings:

final SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy");
final String date = "Mon Jan 25 16:33:06 CET 2016";
pojo.setTimestamp(formatter.parse(date));

I get an exception and do not understand what I should do to resolve it.

Shouldn't be between date a "=". Could you please post your complete code? — Kordi, Mar 01 '16 at 11:04
Your code works fine: http://ideone.com/dknyr2 - unless you use a wrong locale: http://ideone.com/DGHZgj — Andreas Fester, Mar 01 '16 at 11:07
@Ramanlfc: Stracktrace is just the regular "Unparseable date: "Mon Jan 25 16:33:06 CET 2016" at java.text.DateFormat.parse(DateFormat.java:366)" — John Smith, Mar 01 '16 at 11:07

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 01 '16 at 11:07

I suspect the problem is with the locale used in the SimpleDateFormat. By default, SimpleDateFormat takes the default locale of the system... so if you run this code in France, "Mon" won't be recognized as a day-of-week abbreviation, for example.

The simplest fix for this is just to call the SimpleDateFormat constructor which specifies a locale:

SimpleDateFormat formatter =
    new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy", Locale.US);

SimpleDateFormat throws ParseException

1 Answers1

Linked