Convert String to Date format

[Mahi Ranga]

Hi All,

I am facing one problem.that is convert String to Date Format.

my Programme is:

String dateString = "2011/03/28";

SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd");
Date convertedDate = dateFormat.parse(dateString);

System.out.println(" " + convertedDate);

output of this example is:Mon Mar 28 00:00:00 GMT+05:30 2011
but i want yyyy/MM/dd output.

Please help me.

Regards
Mahi Ranga.

[Mohamed Sanaulla]

The best place to start is to read the JavaDatesFaq

[Claudiu Chelemen]

Why don't you print your initial dateString variable?

Otherwise, you could use the same SimpleDateFormat object to format the output:

System.out.println(dateFormat.format(convertedDate)); 

Cheers!

[Jesper de Jong]

One important thing to understand is that Date objects by themselves do not have any format. So, if you parse a string into a Date object, using for example a SimpleDateFormat object with a certain format, then the resulting Date object will not somehow remember the format that the original string had.

If you print the content of a Date object, by simply printing it out like this:

Date date = ...; // wherever you get this
System.out.println(date);

then the date will be printed using some default format that looks like "Mon Mar 28 00:00:00 GMT+05:30 2011" (what you're seeing).

To print a date with a certain format, you'd have to convert it back to a string again. You can do that by calling the format() method of your SimpleDateFormat object. However, it doesn't make much sense to first parse the string into a Date object, and then doing exactly the reverse immediately. You could just as well just print the string directly and save the work of parsing and formatting it.

[Chris Beckey]

Just to add to what Jesper has stated,
A java.util.Date is really just a long value (milliseconds since 01Jan1970 GMT, if memory serves correct), and does not carry any concept of calendar date in the way we usually think of a date. The string representations that you are seeing are produced by the default Locale and its associated Calendar and DateFormat instances. If you want some specific formatting, create a SimpleDateFormat and use its format() method or get the Locale's date formats and use those.