Transforming Dates with SimpleDateFormat

[Robert Popular]

All:
I am getting the current date/time by performing
java.util.Date date = (Calendar.getInstance()).getTime()
It returns this format: Wed Oct 16 11:41:29 CDT 2002
I need to transform this into the following format:
yyyyMMddHHmmssZ
Using the SimpleDateFormat as follows, I get an Unparseable date error.
public String getLDAPDateFormat(java.util.Date date)
{
SimpleDateFormat sdfDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(BatchConstants.DATE_LDAP_PATTERN);
try
{
date = sdfDateFormat.parse(date.toString());
System.out.println("REMOVE): LastLogin=" +date.toString());
}
catch(java.text.ParseException pe)
{
pe.printStackTrace();
}
return date.toString();
}
Can you tell me where the gap in my thinking is? How can I get the first format into the second?
Thanks in advance!
bp

[Robert Popular]

Ok, So I found the hole in the thinking and replaced the code with the following:

  public String getLDAPTimeStamp()
  {
    Date date = new Date();
    String ldapDate;
    SimpleDateFormat sdfDateFormat  = new SimpleDateFormat(BatchConstants.DATE_LDAP_PATTERN);
    ldapDate = sdfDateFormat.format(date);
    System.out.println("KH (REMOVE): ldap test = "+ldapDate);
    return ldapDate;
  }

However, I am getting the following error with the 'Z' in my pattern yyyyMMddHHmmssZ.

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal pattern character 'Z'
at java.text.SimpleDateFormat.subFormat(SimpleDateFormat.java:477)
at java.text.SimpleDateFormat.format(SimpleDateFormat.java:437)
at java.text.DateFormat.format(DateFormat.java:305)
at com.pwc.dcx.batchutility.CalculateDateUtil.getLDAPTimeStamp(CalculateDateUtil.java:100)
at com.pwc.dcx.batchutility.EmailReminder.modifyUserData(EmailReminder.java:151)
at com.pwc.dcx.batchutility.EmailReminder.main(EmailReminder.java:97)

Any ideas?
Thanks!

[James Swan]

If you wanted the timezone info to appear on your formatted date then you should use lowercase 'z'
eg.
yyyyMMddHHmmssz
Or if you wanted the literal 'Z' to appear at the end of the formatted date the do this:
ldapDate = sdfDateFormat.format(date) + "Z";

[Dave Landers]

Z is a new formatting character for JDK 1.4 to handle RFC 822 time zones. If you are looking at the 1.4 docs, make sure you are running with a 1.4 JDK.