How to show Dutch month using Joda DateTime

Question

I'm trying to show dutch months. But the month is printed out in English. This needs to work from Android API 19 and higher.

compile 'joda-time:joda-time:2.9.9'

val test = DateTime()

val l = Locale("nl_NL")  // Dutch language, Netherlands country.
val f = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("dd MMM yyyy").withLocale(l)
val text = f.print(test)

Prints out:

26 Oct 2017

Should be:

26 Okt 2017

score 2 · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-26T11:48:28.037

2

You must use the Locale's 2-arg constructor, that receives the language and country code in separate parameters:

val l = Locale("nl", "NL")

With this, the output is:

26 okt 2017

In my tests, the output is not in uppercase Okt as you wanted, but that's built-in in the API and we have no control over it. If you want Okt as output, you'll have to manipulate the string by yourself.

edited Oct 26 '17 at 11:48

answered Oct 26 '17 at 11:41

okt to Okt can be done with substring() and toUpperCase(). There are many workarounds for this issue. – LenglBoy Oct 26 '17 at 11:45
3

In Dutch, months are generally not started with a capital, so the API is correct. – nhaarman Oct 26 '17 at 12:18

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 26 '17 at 12:23

Correct answer:

    val l = Locale("nl", "NL")
    val f = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("dd MMM yyyy").withLocale(l)

    val dateStr = f.print(dateTime).substring(3, 4).toUpperCase()
    val capitalizedDate = StringBuilder(f.print(dateTime))
    capitalizedDate.setCharAt(3, dateStr[0])

    return capitalizedDate.toString().replace(".", "")

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 26 '17 at 12:45

I already answered to a similar question here. You can get a localized month name using Calendar object.

private String getMonthName(final int index, final Locale locale, final boolean shortName)
{
    String format = "%tB";

    if (shortName)
        format = "%tb";

    Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance(locale);
    calendar.set(Calendar.MONTH, index);
    calendar.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1);

    return String.format(locale, format, calendar);
}

Example for full month name:

System.out.println(getMonthName(0, new Locale("NL"), false));

Result: januari

Example for short month name:

System.out.println(getMonthName(2, new Locale("NL"), true));

Result: jan.

How to show Dutch month using Joda DateTime

3 Answers3