Why is my String variable "unparseable" to Date through SimpleDateFormat?

Question

I'm trying to parse a String value in the format Sat Dec 03 20:30:33 GMT+00:00 2016 to a Date variable, but I'm getting an java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "Sat Dec 03 20:30:33 GMT+00:00 2016" (at offset 0) exception. What am I doing wrong here?

Date itemDate = new Date();
        DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss");
        try {
            itemDate = df.parse(c.getString(c.getColumnIndexOrThrow(ArticlesContract.ArticleEntry.COLUMN_NAME_DATE)));
        } catch (ParseException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

First of all, what is your current locale? Second, where are you parsing the end of the String, which is `GMT+00:00 2016`? — Tunaki, Dec 03 '16 at 21:20
@Tunaki To be honest I'm not sure, but I think it is pt_PT for the locale. As for the end of the String, is that relevant to this error? I wasn't sure of how to parse that part, so I left it for later. — KaiZ, Dec 03 '16 at 21:23
No that second part will be your next error. The current error is that `Sat` cannot be understood as a portuguese day of week. See also http://stackoverflow.com/a/23790945/1743880, you need to change the locale used by the formatter. — Tunaki, Dec 03 '16 at 21:26

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 03 '16 at 21:27

this works

    private static void test1() {
            Date itemDate = new Date();
            DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss", Locale.ENGLISH);
            try {
                itemDate = df.parse("Sat Dec 03 20:30:33");
//"Sat Dec 03 20:30:33 GMT+00:00 2016" works too.
            } catch (ParseException e) {
                // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
            System.out.println(itemDate);
        }

the problem is about 'Dec' month. You have got another locale in your device

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 03 '16 at 21:23

Sat Dec 03 20:30:33 GMT+00:00 2016

is a string with some locale dependent elements like "Sat" and "Dec"

therefore you have to do:

DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss", Locale.ENGLISH);

then be sure the pattern you are using is matching the string you want to parse...

in your example we see this : "EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss" but the string to parse has for example the year to... so you need to parse that info as well adding in the correct place the year component yyyy

Why is my String variable "unparseable" to Date through SimpleDateFormat?

2 Answers2