How can I convert String to timestamp with timezone?

Question

In my Spring Boot project, I have this array of objects (List<Object> values)

["2021-06-13T08:50:04.707Z", 3197691, 1933]

The first element is a String and represents a timestamp with timezone.

I can get the first element like this:

String time = (String) values.get(0);

How can I convert it in date or time format in order to insert in a PostgreSQL table?

you want to convert it in sql ? If yes then in your query you can write something like this `select '2021-06-13T08:50:04.707Z'::timestamp` — Philippe, Jun 14 '21 at 10:23
In which programming language or environment do you wnat to do that? — , Jun 14 '21 at 10:24

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 14 '21 at 10:47

The given timestamp string conforms to the ISO 8601 standards.

The modern Date-Time API^* is based on ISO 8601 and does not require using a DateTimeFormatter object explicitly as long as the Date-Time string conforms to the ISO 8601 standards.

Demo:

import java.time.OffsetDateTime;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        OffsetDateTime odt = OffsetDateTime.parse("2021-06-13T08:50:04.707Z");
        System.out.println(odt);
    }
}

Output:

2021-06-13T08:50:04.707Z

Check this answer to learn how to use OffsetDateTime with JDBC.

Learn more about the modern Date-Time API from Trail: Date Time.

^{* For any reason, if you have to stick to Java 6 or Java 7, you can use ThreeTen-Backport which backports most of the java.time functionality to Java 6 & 7. If you are working for an Android project and your Android API level is still not compliant with Java-8, check Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring and How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project.}

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 14 '21 at 10:56

1

First thing you must understand the timestamp format, and for your timestamp format is

yyyy-MM-dd'T'hh:mm:ss.SSS'Z'

Don't forget to add 'T' and 'Z'

Then, to convert from string date to Date class you can use SimpleDateFormat class

String dateInString = "2021-06-13T08:50:04.707Z";
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'hh:mm:ss.SSS'Z'");
Date date = dateFormat.parse(dateInString);

Then use the data object to insert to your query. Or if you are using JPA, simply just create the entity and put data object to the variable.

answered Jun 14 '21 at 10:56

rioswarawan

117
1
4

1

The `java.util` Date-Time API and their formatting API, `SimpleDateFormat` are outdated and error-prone. It is recommended to stop using them completely and switch to the [modern Date-Time API](https://www.oracle.com/technical-resources/articles/java/jf14-Date-Time.html). – Arvind Kumar Avinash Jun 14 '21 at 12:02
1

@ArvindKumarAvinash thank you for the information. Will read more about this. – rioswarawan Jun 14 '21 at 13:33
1

rioswarawan - Another thing you should learn is [`'Z'` is not the same as `Z`](https://stackoverflow.com/a/67953075/10819573) – Arvind Kumar Avinash Jun 14 '21 at 17:08
2

Please don’t teach the young ones to use the long outdated and notoriously troublesome `SimpleDateFormat` class. At least not as the first option. And not without any reservation. We have so much better in [`java.time`, the modern Java date and time API,](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/datetime/) and its `DateTimeFormatter`. Also quoting the `Z` in the format pattern string is wrong. The `Z` is an offset (of 0) from UTC and needs to be parsed as an offset, or you will get a wrong point in time. Finally lower case `hh` is wrong too. – Ole V.V. Jun 14 '21 at 17:31
2

(A) *Never* put the `Z` within single-quotes like this `'Z'`. Doing so tells the parser to ignore what is crucial information: An offset-from-UTC of zero hours-minutes-seconds. (B) And, as others commented, you are using *terrible* classes that were years ago supplanted by the *java.time* classes. See the modern solution in [Answer by Arvind Kumar Avinash](https://stackoverflow.com/a/67968871/642706). – Basil Bourque Jun 14 '21 at 21:14
Well, thank you guys. Learn so much about this. – rioswarawan Jun 15 '21 at 01:48

How can I convert String to timestamp with timezone?

2 Answers2