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

Use SimpleDateFormat

Like this:

event.putExtra("starttime", "12/18/2012");

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

Answer 2

Use these two as a class variables:

 public java.text.DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
 private Calendar mDate = null;

And use it like this:

 mDate = Calendar.getInstance();
 mDate.set(year,months,day);                   
 dateFormat.format(mDate.getTime());

Answer 3

Locale

To get date or time in locale format from milliseconds I used this:

Date and time

Date date = new Date(milliseconds);
DateFormat dateFormat = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance(DateFormat.MEDIUM, DateFormat.SHORT, Locale.getDefault());
dateFormat.format(date);

Date

Date date = new Date(milliseconds);
DateFormat dateFormat = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.MEDIUM, Locale.getDefault());
dateFormat.format(date);

Time

Date date = new Date(milliseconds);
DateFormat dateFormat = DateFormat.getTimeInstance(DateFormat.SHORT, Locale.getDefault());
dateFormat.format(date);

You can use other date style and time style. More info about styles here.

Answer 4

Use the standard Java DateFormat class.

For example to display the current date and time do the following:

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

You can initialise a Date object with your own values, however you should be aware that the constructors have been deprecated and you should really be using a Java Calendar object.

Answer 5

Following this: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/text/format/Time.html

Is better to use Android native Time class:

Time now = new Time();
now.setToNow();

Then format:

Log.d("DEBUG", "Time "+now.format("%d.%m.%Y %H.%M.%S"));

Answer 6

This is my method, you can define and input and output format.

public static String formattedDateFromString(String inputFormat, String outputFormat, String inputDate){
    if(inputFormat.equals("")){ // if inputFormat = "", set a default input format.
        inputFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss";
    }
    if(outputFormat.equals("")){
        outputFormat = "EEEE d 'de' MMMM 'del' yyyy"; // if inputFormat = "", set a default output format.
    }
    Date parsed = null;
    String outputDate = "";

    SimpleDateFormat df_input = new SimpleDateFormat(inputFormat, java.util.Locale.getDefault());
    SimpleDateFormat df_output = new SimpleDateFormat(outputFormat, java.util.Locale.getDefault());

    // You can set a different Locale, This example set a locale of Country Mexico.
    //SimpleDateFormat df_input = new SimpleDateFormat(inputFormat, new Locale("es", "MX"));
    //SimpleDateFormat df_output = new SimpleDateFormat(outputFormat, new Locale("es", "MX"));

    try {
        parsed = df_input.parse(inputDate);
        outputDate = df_output.format(parsed);
    } catch (Exception e) { 
        Log.e("formattedDateFromString", "Exception in formateDateFromstring(): " + e.getMessage());
    }
    return outputDate;

}