want current date and time in "dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss.SS" format

Question

I am using following code to get date in "dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss.SS" format.

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

public class DateAndTime{

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception{
        Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
        SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss.SS");
        String strDate = sdf.format(cal.getTime());
        System.out.println("Current date in String Format: "+strDate);

        SimpleDateFormat sdf1 = new SimpleDateFormat();
        sdf1.applyPattern("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss.SS");
        Date date = sdf1.parse(strDate);
        System.out.println("Current date in Date Format: "+date);
    }
}

And I am getting following output

Current date in String Format: 05/01/2012 21:10:17.287
Current date in Date Format: Thu Jan 05 21:10:17 IST 2012

Kindly suggest what I should do to display the date in same string format(dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss.SS) i.e i want following output:

Current date in String Format: 05/01/2012 21:10:17.287
Current date in Date Format: 05/01/2012 21:10:17.287

Answer 1

SimpleDateFormat

sdf=new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/YYYY hh:mm:ss");
String dateString=sdf.format(date);

It will give the output 28/09/2013 09:57:19 as you expected.

For complete program click here

Answer 2

You can't - because you're calling Date.toString() which will always include the system time zone if that's in the default date format for the default locale. The Date value itself has no concept of a format. If you want to format it in a particular way, use SimpleDateFormat.format()... using Date.toString() is almost always a bad idea.

Answer 3

The following code gives expected output. Is that what you want?

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;

public class DateAndTime {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
        SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss.SS");
        String strDate = sdf.format(cal.getTime());
        System.out.println("Current date in String Format: " + strDate);

        SimpleDateFormat sdf1 = new SimpleDateFormat();
        sdf1.applyPattern("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss.SS");
        Date date = sdf1.parse(strDate);
        String string = sdf1.format(date);
        System.out.println("Current date in Date Format: " + string);

    }
}

Answer 4

tl;dr

• Use modern java.time classes.
• Never use Date/Calendar/SimpleDateFormat classes.

Example:

ZonedDateTime                                // Represent a moment as seen in the wall-clock time used by the people of a particular region (a time zone).
.now(                                        // Capture the current moment.
    ZoneId.of( "Africa/Tunis" )              // Always specify time zone using proper `Continent/Region` format. Never use 3-4 letter pseudo-zones such as EST, PDT, IST, etc.
)
.truncatedTo(                                // Lop off finer part of this value.
    ChronoUnit.MILLIS                        // Specify level of truncation via `ChronoUnit` enum object.
)                                            // Returns another separate `ZonedDateTime` object, per immutable objects pattern, rather than alter (“mutate”) the original.
.format(                                     // Generate a `String` object with text representing the value of our `ZonedDateTime` object.
    DateTimeFormatter.ISO_LOCAL_DATE_TIME    // This standard ISO 8601 format is close to your desired output.
)                                            // Returns a `String`.
.replace( "T" , " " )                        // Replace `T` in middle with a SPACE.

java.time

The modern approach uses java.time classes that years ago supplanted the terrible old date-time classes such as Calendar & SimpleDateFormat.

want current date and time

Capture the current moment in UTC using Instant.

Instant instant = Instant.now() ;

To view that same moment through the lens of the wall-clock time used by the people of a particular region (a time zone), apply a ZoneId to get a ZonedDateTime.

Specify a proper time zone name in the format of continent/region, such as America/Montreal, Africa/Casablanca, or Pacific/Auckland. Never use the 3-4 letter abbreviation such as EST or IST as they are not true time zones, not standardized, and not even unique(!).

ZoneId z = ZoneId.of( "Pacific/Auckland" ) ;
ZonedDateTime zdt = instant.atZone( z ) ;

Or, as a shortcut, pass a ZoneId to the ZonedDateTime.now method.

ZonedDateTime zdt = ZonedDateTime.now( ZoneId.of( "Pacific/Auckland" ) ) ;

The java.time classes use a resolution of nanoseconds. That means up to nine digits of a decimal fraction of a second. If you want only three, milliseconds, truncate. Pass your desired limit as a ChronoUnit enum object.

ZonedDateTime
.now( 
    ZoneId.of( "Pacific/Auckland" ) 
)
.truncatedTo(
    ChronoUnit.MILLIS
)

in “dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss.SS” format

I recommend always including the offset-from-UTC or time zone when generating a string, to avoid ambiguity and misunderstanding.

But if you insist, you can specify a specific format when generating a string to represent your date-time value. A built-in pre-defined formatter nearly meets your desired format, but for a T where you want a SPACE.

String output = 
    zdt.format( DateTimeFormatter.ISO_LOCAL_DATE_TIME )
    .replace( "T" , " " )  
;

sdf1.applyPattern("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss.SS");

Date date = sdf1.parse(strDate);

Never exchange date-time values using text intended for presentation to humans.

Instead, use the standard formats defined for this very purpose, found in ISO 8601.

The java.time use these ISO 8601 formats by default when parsing/generating strings.

Always include an indicator of the offset-from-UTC or time zone when exchanging a specific moment. So your desired format discussed above is to be avoided for data-exchange. Furthermore, generally best to exchange a moment as UTC. This means an Instant in java.time. You can exchange a Instant from a ZonedDateTime, effectively adjusting from a time zone to UTC for the same moment, same point on the timeline, but a different wall-clock time.

Instant instant = zdt.toInstant() ;
String exchangeThisString = instant.toString() ;

2018-01-23T01:23:45.123456789Z

This ISO 8601 format uses a Z on the end to represent UTC, pronounced “Zulu”.

---

About java.time

The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.

The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.

To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.

You may exchange java.time objects directly with your database. Use a JDBC driver compliant with JDBC 4.2 or later. No need for strings, no need for java.sql.* classes.

Where to obtain the java.time classes?

• Java SE 8, Java SE 9, Java SE 10, Java SE 11, and later - Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
  • Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes.
• Java SE 6 and Java SE 7
  • Most of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
• Android
  • Later versions of Android bundle implementations of the java.time classes.
  • For earlier Android (<26), the ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above). See How to use ThreeTenABP….

The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.

Answer 5

Here's a simple snippet working in Java 8 and using the "new" date and time API LocalDateTime:

DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss.SS");
LocalDateTime now = LocalDateTime.now();
System.out.println(dtf.format(now)); 

Answer 6

You need to use your SimpleDateFormat to format the date back to the format that you are looking for.

System.out.println("Current date in Date Format: " + sdf.format(date));

Update 2023: As pointed in other answers, code nowadays should default to Java Date and Time API, including SimpleDateFormat modern, immutable and thread-safe cousin: DateTimeFormatter.

Answer 7

The output in your first printline is using your formatter. The output in your second (the date created from your parsed string) is output using Date#toString which formats according to its own rules. That is, you're not using a formatter.

The rules are as per what you're seeing and described here: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Date.html#toString()

Answer 8

Disclaimer: this answer does not endorse the use of the Date class (in fact it’s long outdated and poorly designed, so I’d rather discourage it completely). I try to answer a regularly recurring question about date and time objects with a format. For this purpose I am using the Date class as example. Other classes are treated at the end.

You don’t want to

You don’t want a Date with a specific format. Good practice in all but the simplest throw-away programs is to keep your user interface apart from your model and your business logic. The value of the Date object belongs in your model, so keep your Date there and never let the user see it directly. When you adhere to this, it will never matter which format the Date has got. Whenever the user should see the date, format it into a String and show the string to the user. Similarly if you need a specific format for persistence or exchange with another system, format the Date into a string for that purpose. If the user needs to enter a date and/or time, either accept a string or use a date picker or time picker.

Special case: storing into an SQL database. It may appear that your database requires a specific format. Not so. Use yourPreparedStatement.setObject(yourParamIndex, yourDateOrTimeObject) where yourDateOrTimeObject is a LocalDate, Instant, LocalDateTime or an instance of an appropriate date-time class from java.time. And again don’t worry about the format of that object. Search for more details.

You cannot

A Date hasn’t got, as in cannot have a format. It’s a point in time, nothing more, nothing less. A container of a value. In your code sdf1.parse converts your string into a Date object, that is, into a point in time. It doesn’t keep the string nor the format that was in the string.

To finish the story, let’s look at the next line from your code too:

    System.out.println("Current date in Date Format: "+date);

In order to perform the string concatenation required by the + sign Java needs to convert your Date into a String first. It does this by calling the toString method of your Date object. Date.toString always produces a string like Thu Jan 05 21:10:17 IST 2012. There is no way you could change that (except in a subclass of Date, but you don’t want that). Then the generated string is concatenated with the string literal to produce the string printed by System.out.println.

In short “format” applies only to the string representations of dates, not to the dates themselves.

Isn’t it strange that a Date hasn’t got a format?

I think what I’ve written is quite as we should expect. It’s similar to other types. Think of an int. The same int may be formatted into strings like 53,551, 53.551 (with a dot as thousands separator), 00053551, +53 551 or even 0x0000_D12F. All of this formatting produces strings, while the int just stays the same and doesn’t change its format. With a Date object it’s exactly the same: you can format it into many different strings, but the Date itself always stays the same.

Can I then have a LocalDate, a ZonedDateTime, a Calendar, a GregorianCalendar, an XMLGregorianCalendar, a java.sql.Date, Time or Timestamp in the format of my choice?

No, you cannot, and for the same reasons as above. None of the mentioned classes, in fact no date or time class I have ever met, can have a format. You can have your desired format only in a String outside your date-time object.

Links

• Model–view–controller on Wikipedia
• All about java.util.Date on Jon Skeet’s coding blog
• Answers by Basil Bourque and Pitto explaining what to do instead (also using classes that are more modern and far more programmer friendly than Date)

Answer 9

If you are using JAVA8 API then this code will help.

DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
String dateTimeString = LocalDateTime.now().format(formatter);
System.out.println(dateTimeString);

It will print the date in the given format.

But if you again create a object of LocalDateTime it will print the 'T' in between the date and time.

LocalDateTime dateTime = LocalDateTime.parse(dateTimeString, formatter);
System.out.println(dateTime.toString());

So as mentioned in earlier posts as well, the representation and usage is different.

Its better to use "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss" pattern and convert the string/date object accordingly.

Answer 10

use

Date date = new Date();
String strDate = sdf.format(date);

intead Of

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
String strDate = sdf.format(cal.getTime());

Answer 11

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

public class DateAndTime{

  public static void main(String[] args)throws Exception{
     Date date = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis());
     DateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss.SS", 
      Locale.ENGLISH);
    String strDate = format.format(date);
    System.out.println("Current date in String Format: "+strDate);
   }
}

use this code u will get current date in expected string format