How to get Date formatted in locale with specific pattern?

Question

After searching, i was unable to find a solution for this problem.

i have this:

Long parseDt = Long.valueOf(arrayJson.getJSONObject(i-j).getInt("dt")); // dt is a timestamp
Locale locale = ConfigurationCompat.getLocales(Resources.getSystem().getConfiguration()).get(0);
String date = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE d MMM", locale).format(new java.util.Date(parseDt * 1000));

So, the pattern works but when i change the phone language, it didn't swap the way it displays, i want to mean if the phone language is French it displays the date like this and it is good for most of the european language:

lun 2 juil

and if i switch language to English, it displays the date like that:

mon 2 july

instead of:

mon july 2

Do you have any clue to solve this problem respecting my pattern knowing that i want the name of the day with 3 characters maximum?

The existing predefined format (like FULL) could work but the name of the day is displayed entirely, for example it is "monday" and i would like only "mon", not "monday", so, any idea?

Why are you expecting the day number to be last with `EEE d MMM`? — OneCricketeer, Jul 02 '18 at 06:53
To display the date in `mon july 2` format you should change the given format for `SimpleDateFormat `. From `EEE d MMM` to `EEE MMMM d` — Suganthan Madhavan Pillai, Jul 02 '18 at 06:56
Are you sure that your users prefer “Mon”? Asking on one hand suspecting that an amount of work has been put into defining the predefined formats, on the other hand respecting that you know your own users best (at least I hope you do). — Ole V.V., Jul 02 '18 at 07:50
@SuganthanMadhavanPillai, idealy i would like to do't have to swap the pattern. I would like it automatic according to the country. I am going to answer soon my question to explain my choices. — eric, Jul 02 '18 at 11:00
@OleV.V., agree, maybe the users would more prefer the full day name but in this case, my problem is that i have not enough room to display the full day name. Idealy, 3 characters for the day name, 2 for the day of the month and 3 or 4 for the month, and that's all, no more room. — eric, Jul 02 '18 at 11:05
And of course you did consider the medium or short predefined formats(?) As an aside, no matter if you end up using my answer or not, consider throwing away the long outmoded and notoriously troublesome `SimpleDateFormat` and friends, and adding [ThreeTenABP](https://github.com/JakeWharton/ThreeTenABP) to your Android project in order to use `java.time`, the modern Java date and time API. It is so much nicer to work with. — Ole V.V., Jul 02 '18 at 11:11

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 02 '18 at 07:03

0

You could toggle the format according to the locale you got.

Locale locale = ConfigurationCompat.getLocales(
                   Resources.getSystem().getConfiguration()).get(0);

String fmt = (locale == Locale.ENGLISH) ? "EEE MMM d" : "EEE d MMM";
String date = new SimpleDateFormat(fmt, locale)
                   .format(new java.util.Date(parseDt * 1000));

answered Jul 02 '18 at 07:03

OneCricketeer

179,855
19
132
245

Thank you cricket_007 for your idea. I was thinking to do something like this, it is tricky. I would have prefer an automatic way to do it but i like it. If i don't find any more solution, i will take this answer as the accepted answer. Thnak you for the help. – eric Jul 02 '18 at 09:21
If you use Android View binding, you should be able to do this within the XML, I think – OneCricketeer Jul 02 '18 at 09:31
My accepted answer is for cricket_007 but my own answer (based on cricket answer) is perfectly appropriate to my problem and without the mistake of (the "==" instead of ".equals") – eric Jul 03 '18 at 18:01

Ole V.V. · Answer 2 · 2018-07-02T10:58:51.997

Java already “knows” in which locales the day of month goes before the month name and in which it goes after. This is what the full predefined format gave you. So for a general solution that may work in all or most locales I suggest that you rely on this. We can modify the predefined full pattern to use abbreviations for day of week and for month:

    int parseDt = arrayJson.getJSONObject(i-j).getInt("dt"); // dt is a timestamp
    Locale locale = ConfigurationCompat.getLocales(Resources.getSystem().getConfiguration()).get(0);
    String formatPattern = DateTimeFormatterBuilder.getLocalizedDateTimePattern(
            FormatStyle.FULL, null, IsoChronology.INSTANCE, locale);
    formatPattern = formatPattern.replaceAll("E{3,}", "EEE").replaceAll("M{3,}", "MMM");
    DateTimeFormatter dateFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern(formatPattern, locale);
    ZoneId zone = ZoneId.of("America/Whitehorse");
    ZonedDateTime dateTime = Instant.ofEpochSecond(parseDt).atZone(zone);
    String date = dateTime.format(dateFormatter);
    System.out.println(date);

Example output:

In UK locale: Mon, 2 Jul 2018
In US locale: Mon, Jul 2, 2018
In FRENCH locale: lun. 2 juil. 2018

I am using regular expressions to make sure that if day of week and/or month is in the format pattern string (for example EEEE and MMMM), it is modified to its abbreviation. Since day of week may also be indicated by lowercase e or c and month by L, you may want to do the same trick with these letters.

I am using java.time, the modern Java date and time API. To use this on not-brand-new Android, get the ThreeTenABP library: use the links at the bottom. If you object to using a high-quality future-proof external library, you may be able to play a similar trick with SimpleDateFormat.

If you want to omit the year too (as in your examples), it is slightly more complicated, but doable. Here’s a simple attempt to remove the year if it comes last:

    formatPattern = formatPattern.replaceFirst("^(.*[\\w'])([^\\w']*y+)$", "$1");

With this line inserted the output in French locale is just lun. 2 juil., for example. Year may also be given with letter u, you may want to take this into account too.

Converting your Unix time to a date is a time zone sensitive operation, so I give time zone in the code. Please put the one you desire where I put America/Whitehorse. If you trust that the JVM’s time zone setting reflects what the user wants, you may use ZoneId.systemDefault() (the SimpleDateFormat in your own code uses the VM setting too).

Links

Oracle tutorial: Date Time explaining how to use java.time.
Java Specification Request (JSR) 310, where java.time was first described.
ThreeTen Backport project, the backport of java.timeto Java 6 and 7 (ThreeTen for JSR-310).
ThreeTenABP, Android edition of ThreeTen Backport
Question: How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project, with a very thorough explanation.

Many thanks Ole V.V. for your interesting answer and the time spent. I am going to think about what would be the easiest way to do it. I will answer this post by myself according to my requirements and to explain my choices. Cheers & thank you. — eric, Jul 02 '18 at 10:43

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 09 '18 at 06:17

According to the date format of the countries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country

and my app needs, I've choosen the easiest way to display it:

int parseDt = arrayJson.getJSONObject(i-j).getInt("dt"); // dt is a timestamp
Locale locale = ConfigurationCompat.getLocales(Resources.getSystem().getConfiguration()).get(0);
String dateFormat = ((locale.equals(Locale.US) || locale.equals(Locale.CHINA) || locale.equals(Locale.CANADA) || locale.equals(Locale.JAPAN)) ? "EEE, MMM d" : "EEE d MMM";
String date = new SimpleDateFormat(dateFormat, locale).format(new java.util.Date(parseDt * 1000));

How to get Date formatted in locale with specific pattern?

3 Answers3

Links