Change date format in a Java string

Question

I've a String representing a date.

String date_s = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";

I'd like to convert it to a Date and output it in YYYY-MM-DD format.

2011-01-18

How can I achieve this?

---

Okay, based on the answers I retrieved below, here's something I've tried:

String date_s = " 2011-01-18 00:00:00.0"; 
SimpleDateFormat dt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss"); 
Date date = dt.parse(date_s); 
SimpleDateFormat dt1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyy-mm-dd");
System.out.println(dt1.format(date));

But it outputs 02011-00-1 instead of the desired 2011-01-18. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

The answer is of course to create a SimpleDateFormat object and use it to parse Strings to Date and to format Dates to Strings. If you've tried SimpleDateFormat and it didn't work, then please show your code and any errors you may receive.

Addendum: "mm" in the format String is not the same as "MM". Use MM for months and mm for minutes. Also, yyyyy is not the same as yyyy. e.g.,:

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

public class FormateDate {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
        String date_s = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";

        // *** note that it's "yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss" not "yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss"  
        SimpleDateFormat dt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss");
        Date date = dt.parse(date_s);

        // *** same for the format String below
        SimpleDateFormat dt1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
        System.out.println(dt1.format(date));
    }

}

Answer 2

   String str = "2000-12-12";
   Date dt = null;
   SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");

    try 
    {
         dt = formatter.parse(str);
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
    }

    JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, formatter.format(dt));

Answer 3

Other answers are correct, basically you had the wrong number of "y" characters in your pattern.

Time Zone

One more problem though… You did not address time zones. If you intended UTC, then you should have said so. If not, the answers are not complete. If all you want is the date portion without the time, then no issue. But if you do further work that may involve time, then you should be specifying a time zone.

Joda-Time

Here is the same kind of code but using the third-party open-source Joda-Time 2.3 library

// © 2013 Basil Bourque. This source code may be used freely forever by anyone taking full responsibility for doing so.

String date_s = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";

org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormatter formatter = org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormat.forPattern( "yyyy-MM-dd' 'HH:mm:ss.SSS" );
// By the way, if your date-time string conformed strictly to ISO 8601 including a 'T' rather than a SPACE ' ', you could
// use a formatter built into Joda-Time rather than specify your own: ISODateTimeFormat.dateHourMinuteSecondFraction().
// Like this:
//org.joda.time.DateTime dateTimeInUTC = org.joda.time.format.ISODateTimeFormat.dateHourMinuteSecondFraction().withZoneUTC().parseDateTime( date_s );

// Assuming the date-time string was meant to be in UTC (no time zone offset).
org.joda.time.DateTime dateTimeInUTC = formatter.withZoneUTC().parseDateTime( date_s );
System.out.println( "dateTimeInUTC: " + dateTimeInUTC );
System.out.println( "dateTimeInUTC (date only): " + org.joda.time.format.ISODateTimeFormat.date().print( dateTimeInUTC ) );
System.out.println( "" ); // blank line.

// Assuming the date-time string was meant to be in Kolkata time zone (formerly known as Calcutta). Offset is +5:30 from UTC (note the half-hour).
org.joda.time.DateTimeZone kolkataTimeZone = org.joda.time.DateTimeZone.forID( "Asia/Kolkata" );
org.joda.time.DateTime dateTimeInKolkata = formatter.withZone( kolkataTimeZone ).parseDateTime( date_s );
System.out.println( "dateTimeInKolkata: " + dateTimeInKolkata );
System.out.println( "dateTimeInKolkata (date only): " + org.joda.time.format.ISODateTimeFormat.date().print( dateTimeInKolkata ) );
// This date-time in Kolkata is a different point in the time line of the Universe than the dateTimeInUTC instance created above. The date is even different.
System.out.println( "dateTimeInKolkata adjusted to UTC: " + dateTimeInKolkata.toDateTime( org.joda.time.DateTimeZone.UTC ) );

When run…

dateTimeInUTC: 2011-01-18T00:00:00.000Z
dateTimeInUTC (date only): 2011-01-18

dateTimeInKolkata: 2011-01-18T00:00:00.000+05:30
dateTimeInKolkata (date only): 2011-01-18
dateTimeInKolkata adjusted to UTC: 2011-01-17T18:30:00.000Z

Answer 4

Using the java.time package in Java 8 and later:

String date = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";
TemporalAccessor temporal = DateTimeFormatter
    .ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.S")
    .parse(date); // use parse(date, LocalDateTime::from) to get LocalDateTime
String output = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd").format(temporal);

Answer 5

try
 {
    String date_s = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";
    SimpleDateFormat simpledateformat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.S");
    Date tempDate=simpledateformat.parse(date_s);
    SimpleDateFormat outputDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");           
    System.out.println("Output date is = "+outputDateFormat.format(tempDate));
  } catch (ParseException ex) 
  {
        System.out.println("Parse Exception");
  }

Answer 6

public class SystemDateTest {

    String stringDate;

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SystemDateTest systemDateTest = new SystemDateTest();
        SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-mm-yyyy hh:mm:ss");
        systemDateTest.setStringDate(simpleDateFormat.format(systemDateTest.getDate()));
        System.out.println(systemDateTest.getStringDate());
    }

    public Date getDate() {
        return new Date();
    }

    public String getStringDate() {
        return stringDate;
    }

    public void setStringDate(String stringDate) {
        this.stringDate = stringDate;
    }
}