Converting a String to Date, almost done!

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Converting ISO8601-compliant String to java.util.Date

I'm trying to convert this String:

2011-06-07T14:08:59.697-07:00

To a Java Date, so far, here's what I did:

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.S");
Date date1 = sdf.parse("2011-06-07T14:08:59.697", new java.text.ParsePosition(0));

Almost everything is good, except the most important part, the timezone !! The problem with SimpleDateFormat is that it expect a TimeZone in +/-hhmm and mine is in +/-hh:mm format.

Also, and I don't know why, this works:

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.S Z");
Date date1 = sdf.parse("2011-06-07T14:08:59.697 -0700", new java.text.ParsePosition(0));

But this does not (the space before the timezone):

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SZ");
Date date1 = sdf.parse("2011-06-07T14:08:59.697-0700", new java.text.ParsePosition(0));

What is the correct format to transform this date 2011-06-07T14:08:59.697-07:00 to a java date ?

Thanks for your help!

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/909022/whats-the-best-way-to-parse-an-xml-datetime-in-java/5732733#5732733 — josh.trow, Jun 08 '11 at 13:47
(I'd say it's an exact duplicate, the other question also had to deal with the problem of the colon in ISO8601 timezone) — Jason S, Jun 08 '11 at 13:50

Jesper · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-08T14:23:52.000

That looks like the ISO 8601 standard date and time format as it is used in XML. Unfortunately, Java's SimpleDateFormat doesn't support that format properly, because it can't deal with the colon in the timezone.

However, the javax.xml package contains classes that can deal with this format.

String text = "2011-06-07T14:08:59.697-07:00";
XMLGregorianCalendar cal = DatatypeFactory.newInstance().newXMLGregorianCalendar(text);

If you need it as a java.util.Calendar then you can call toGregorianCalendar() on it:

Calendar c2 = cal.toGregorianCalendar();

And ofcourse you can get a java.util.Date out of that:

Date date = c2.getTime();

You could also use the popular Joda Time library which natively supports this format (and has a much better API for dealing with dates and times than Java's standard library).

Note that since Java 7, `SimpleDateFormat` does support ISO 8601 timezones, with the `X` format character. So you could use the format: `yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm.ss.SSSX` — Jesper, Jan 24 '14 at 13:14

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 08 '11 at 14:23

Java SimpleDateFormat doesn't support colon in the timezone information. You should use other implementation such as JodaTime.

Example usage:

String dateString = "2011-06-07T14:08:59.697-07:00";
String pattern = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ";
DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormat.forPattern(pattern);
DateTime dateTime = dtf.parseDateTime(dateString);
System.out.println(dateTime);

maven pom.xml dependency if needed:

<dependency>
<groupId>joda-time</groupId>
<artifactId>joda-time</artifactId>
<version>1.6.2</version>
</dependency>

Hope it helps.

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 08 '11 at 14:10

The problem with S is that it will produce three digit milli-seconds but will not parse three digits.

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ");
System.out.println(sdf.parse("2011-06-07T14:08:59.697-0700"));

prints

Tue Jun 07 22:08:59 BST 2011

It appears you need to remove the : in the timezone.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 08 '11 at 14:16

It looks like DateFormat can't find the end of milliseconds and the start of timezone. Regex to the rescue!

This is a work around:

    SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.S Z");
    Date date1 = sdf.parse("2011-06-07T14:08:59.697-0700".replaceAll("(?=.{5}$)", " "));

The regex puts a space in and this code executes without error.

Converting a String to Date, almost done!

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