How to change the language of the month to Spanish?

Question

I receive the date from API like this:

2020-09-10T20:00:00.000Z

when I convert this date, It shows SEPTEMBER 10, 2020 8:00 p. m.

I need show the month in Spanish, e.g Septiembre or Sep

Answer 1

I recommend you do it with the modern java.time date-time API and the corresponding formatting API (package, java.time.format) instead of with the outdated and error-prone java.util date-time API and SimpleDateFormat. Learn more about the modern date-time API from Trail: Date Time. If your Android API level is still not compliant with Java8, check How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project and Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring.

Do it as follows using the modern date-time API:

import java.time.OffsetDateTime;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.util.Locale;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // The given date-time string
        String strDateTime = "2020-09-10T20:00:00.000Z";

        // Parse the given date-time string into OffsetDateTime
        OffsetDateTime odt = OffsetDateTime.parse(strDateTime);

        // Define the formatter for output in a custom pattern and in Spanish Locale
        DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("MMMM dd, uuuu hh:mm a", new Locale("es", "ES"));

        // Print instant using the defined formatter
        String formatted = formatter.format(odt);
        System.out.println(formatted);
    }
}

Output:

septiembre 10, 2020 08:00 p. m.

If you still want to use the legacy date-time and formatting API, you can do it as follows:

import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Locale;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
        // The given date-time string
        String strDateTime = "2020-09-10T20:00:00.000Z";

        // Define the formatter to parse the input string
        SimpleDateFormat inputFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'");

        // Parse the given date-time string into java.util.Date
        Date date = inputFormatter.parse(strDateTime);
        
        // Define the formatter for output in a custom pattern and in Spanish Locale
        SimpleDateFormat outputFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM dd, yyyy hh:mm a", new Locale("es", "ES"));

        // Print instant using the defined formatter
        String formatted = outputFormatter.format(date);
        System.out.println(formatted);
    }
}

Output:

septiembre 10, 2020 08:00 p. m.

Answer 2

You can try something like this (it returns date in format: 10 de septiembre de 2020 20:00):

val format: DateFormat = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance(
    DateFormat.LONG, // date format
    DateFormat.SHORT, // time format
    Locale("es", "ES") // Spanish Locale
)

val dateTime = "2020-09-10T20:00:00.000Z"
val simpleDateFormat = SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'", Locale("es", "ES"))
val date: Date = simpleDateFormat.parse(dateTime)!! // without validation

println(format.format(date)) // it prints `10 de septiembre de 2020 20:00`