How do you format date and time in Android?

Question

How do you format correctly according to the device configuration a date and time when having year, month, day, hour and minute?

Answer 1

Try:

event.putExtra("startTime", "10/05/2012");

And when you are accessing passed variables:

SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
Date date = formatter.parse(bundle.getString("startTime"));

Answer 2

In my opinion, android.text.format.DateFormat.getDateFormat(context) makes me confused because this method returns java.text.DateFormat rather than android.text.format.DateFormat - -".

So, I use the fragment code as below to get the current date/time in my format.

android.text.format.DateFormat df = new android.text.format.DateFormat();
df.format("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss a", new java.util.Date());

or

android.text.format.DateFormat.format("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss a", new java.util.Date());

In addition, you can use others formats. Follow DateFormat.

Answer 3

Avoid j.u.Date

The Java.util.Date and .Calendar and SimpleDateFormat in Java (and Android) are notoriously troublesome. Avoid them. They are so bad that Sun/Oracle gave up on them, supplanting them with the new java.time package in Java 8 (not in Android as of 2014). The new java.time was inspired by the Joda-Time library.

Joda-Time

Joda-Time does work in Android.

Search StackOverflow for "Joda" to find many examples and much discussion.

A tidbit of source code using Joda-Time 2.4.

Standard format.

String output = DateTime.now().toString(); 
// Current date-time in user's default time zone with a String representation formatted to the ISO 8601 standard.

Localized format.

String output = DateTimeFormat.forStyle( "FF" ).print( DateTime.now() ); 
// Full (long) format localized for this user's language and culture.

Answer 4

This will do it:

Date date = new Date();
java.text.DateFormat dateFormat = android.text.format.DateFormat.getDateFormat(getApplicationContext());
mTimeText.setText("Time: " + dateFormat.format(date));

Answer 5

I use it like this:

public class DateUtils {
    static DateUtils instance;
    private final DateFormat dateFormat;
    private final DateFormat timeFormat;

    private DateUtils() {
        dateFormat = android.text.format.DateFormat.getDateFormat(MainApplication.context);
        timeFormat = android.text.format.DateFormat.getTimeFormat(MainApplication.context);
    }

    public static DateUtils getInstance() {
        if (instance == null) {
            instance = new DateUtils();
        }
        return instance;
    }

    public synchronized static String formatDateTime(long timestamp) {
        long milliseconds = timestamp * 1000;
        Date dateTime = new Date(milliseconds);
        String date = getInstance().dateFormat.format(dateTime);
        String time = getInstance().timeFormat.format(dateTime);
        return date + " " + time;
    }
}

Answer 6

Date to Locale date string:

Date date = new Date();
String stringDate = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance().format(date);

Options:

   DateFormat.getDateInstance() 

- > Dec 31, 1969

   DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance() 

-> Dec 31, 1969 4:00:00 PM

   DateFormat.getTimeInstance() 

-> 4:00:00 PM