0

I want to print the current date in this format - 01-JUN-20 08.55.27.577984000 AM UTC. Tried lot of formats in SimpleDateformat but none is working. What is the right way to print like this?

Praveen Nvs
  • 331
  • 3
  • 14
  • 1
    I recommend you don’t use `SimpleDateFormat`. That class is notoriously troublesome and long outdated. Instead use `DateTimeFormatter` and other classes from [java.time, the modern Java date and time API](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/datetime/). – Ole V.V. Jun 01 '20 at 10:00
  • 1
    If you could use `DateTimeFormatter` that would be better, and the pattern you need will be `"dd-MMM-yy hh.mm.ss.n a z"` which is exactly what you need, nanoseconds and timezone included. – matteobarbieri Jun 01 '20 at 10:04
  • 1
    Close, @matteobarbieri. If the fraction of second is, say 0.001234, one `n` will result in `.1234000`, so wrong. I suggest `ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId.of("Etc/UTC")).format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd-MMM-yy hh.mm.ss.SSSSSSSSS a z", Locale.ENGLISH)).toUpperCase(Locale.ENGLISH)` (just gave `01-JUN-20 10.40.44.076408000 AM UTC` on my computer). – Ole V.V. Jun 01 '20 at 10:41

1 Answers1

0

SimpleDateFormat

You can use the following pattern:

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.TimeZone;

public class TimeFormatting {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yy hh.mm.ss.SSS a Z");
        formatter.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
        String formatted = formatter.format(new Date(2015, 4, 4, 13, 7, 19)); //One example date
        System.out.println(formatted);
    }
}

This will give the output 04-05-15 11.07.19.000 AM +0000 where +0000 equals to UTC.

Explanation of the pattern dd-MM-yy hh.mm.ss.SSS a Z:

  • dd = the day
  • MM = the month
  • yy = the year
  • hh = the hour
  • mm = the minute
  • ss = the second
  • SSS = the millisecond. There does not exist a reference to nanoseconds in SimpleDateFormat (see this answer).
  • a = to show AM/PM
  • Z = to show the timezone

Additional information

Please note: SimpleDateFormat is deprecated. You should use DateTimeFormatter. One big advantage is that you can also have the nanoseconds (n).

One example:

import java.time.LocalDateTime; 
import java.time.ZonedDateTime;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;  
import java.time.ZoneOffset;

public class TimeFormatting {    
  public static void main(String[] args) {    
   ZonedDateTime time = ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneOffset.UTC);

   DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd-MM-yy hh.mm.ss.n a 'UTC'").withZone(ZoneOffset.UTC);
   String timeDate = time.format(formatter);
   System.out.println(timeDate);  
  }    
}

Edit:

If you want to have UTC instead of +0000 with SimpleDateFormat you can use dd-MM-yy hh.mm.ss.SSS a zzz instead.

  • But, this prints the timezone in number +0000,-4000 ..like that..I want it to be printed like UTC,America/Montreal , IST etc – Praveen Nvs Jun 01 '20 at 10:05
  • I just edited my answer. Does that answer your question? –  Jun 01 '20 at 10:32