Convert java.util.Date to String

Question

I want to convert a java.util.Date object to a String in Java.

The format is 2010-05-30 22:15:52

Religieux

Similar question: https://mcmap.net/q/73779/-change-date-format-in-a-java-string – Orna

@harschware FYI, the Joda-Time project is now in maintenance mode, with the team advising migration to the java.time classes. See Tutorial by Oracle. – Anglia

I recommend you don’t use and Date in 2019. That class is poorly designed and long outdated. Instead use Instant or another class from java.time, the modern Java date and time API. – Alrich

Answer 1

Convert a Date to a String using DateFormat#format method:

String pattern = "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss";

// Create an instance of SimpleDateFormat used for formatting 
// the string representation of date according to the chosen pattern
DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern);

// Get the today date using Calendar object.
Date today = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();        
// Using DateFormat format method we can create a string 
// representation of a date with the defined format.
String todayAsString = df.format(today);

// Print the result!
System.out.println("Today is: " + todayAsString);

From http://www.kodejava.org/examples/86.html

Alcott

why use Calendar instead of plain new Date() ? Is there difference ? – Absquatulate

Beware: SimpleDateFormat is not thread safe. #6841303 – Parsons

The format in your answer does not match what the OP asked for. Also more complicated than it needs to be. – Potence

Calendar is an abstract class, Date is concrete. Date has no idea about TimeZone, Locale, or any of that good stuff that we all never use. – Maurilia

The MM/dd/yyyy format is stupid and broken. Do not use it. Always use dd/MM/yyyy or yyyy-MM-dd. – Asynchronism

@Asynchronism - It's stupid, but that doesn't make it pointless. I've been specifically asked to use it because it matches what people expect on reports. (I'd prefer yyyy-MM-dd everywhere, but what can you do?). – Implode

For other formats, see docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/text/… – Implode

FYI, the troublesome old date-time classes such as java.util.Date, java.util.Calendar, and java.text.SimpleDateFormat are now legacy, supplanted by the java.time classes built into Java 8 and later. See Tutorial by Oracle. – Anglia

Answer 2

Format formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
String s = formatter.format(date);

Retention

come here for copy and paste, this answer save my time, Thanks and Upvoted. – Bitterroot

Answer 3

Commons-lang DateFormatUtils is full of goodies (if you have commons-lang in your classpath)

//Formats a date/time into a specific pattern
 DateFormatUtils.format(yourDate, "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:SS");

Noni

Requires an additional null check. – Electromagnetic

Answer 4

tl;dr

myUtilDate.toInstant()  // Convert `java.util.Date` to `Instant`.
          .atOffset( ZoneOffset.UTC )  // Transform `Instant` to `OffsetDateTime`.
          .format( DateTimeFormatter.ISO_LOCAL_DATE_TIME )  // Generate a String.
          .replace( "T" , " " )  // Put a SPACE in the middle.

2014-11-14 14:05:09

java.time

The modern way is with the java.time classes that now supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes.

First convert your java.util.Date to an Instant. The Instant class represents a moment on the timeline in UTC with a resolution of nanoseconds (up to nine (9) digits of a decimal fraction).

Conversions to/from java.time are performed by new methods added to the old classes.

Instant instant = myUtilDate.toInstant();

Both your java.util.Date and java.time.Instant are in UTC. If you want to see the date and time as UTC, so be it. Call toString to generate a String in standard ISO 8601 format.

String output = instant.toString();  

2014-11-14T14:05:09Z

For other formats, you need to transform your Instant into the more flexible OffsetDateTime.

OffsetDateTime odt = instant.atOffset( ZoneOffset.UTC );

odt.toString(): 2020-05-01T21:25:35.957Z

See that code run live at IdeOne.com.

To get a String in your desired format, specify a DateTimeFormatter. You could specify a custom format. But I would use one of the predefined formatters (ISO_LOCAL_DATE_TIME), and replace the T in its output with a SPACE.

String output = odt.format( DateTimeFormatter.ISO_LOCAL_DATE_TIME )
                   .replace( "T" , " " );

2014-11-14 14:05:09

By the way I do not recommend this kind of format where you purposely lose the offset-from-UTC or time zone information. Creates ambiguity as to the meaning of that string’s date-time value.

Also beware of data loss, as any fractional second is being ignored (effectively truncated) in your String’s representation of the date-time value.

To see that same moment through the lens of some particular region’s wall-clock time, apply a ZoneId to get a ZonedDateTime.

ZoneId z = ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" );
ZonedDateTime zdt = instant.atZone( z );

zdt.toString(): 2014-11-14T14:05:09-05:00[America/Montreal]

To generate a formatted String, do the same as above but replace odt with zdt.

String output = zdt.format( DateTimeFormatter.ISO_LOCAL_DATE_TIME )
                   .replace( "T" , " " );

2014-11-14 14:05:09

If executing this code a very large number of times, you may want to be a bit more efficient and avoid the call to String::replace. Dropping that call also makes your code shorter. If so desired, specify your own formatting pattern in your own DateTimeFormatter object. Cache this instance as a constant or member for reuse.

DateTimeFormatter f = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern( "uuuu-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" );  // Data-loss: Dropping any fractional second.

Apply that formatter by passing the instance.

String output = zdt.format( f );

About java.time

The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old date-time classes such as java.util.Date, .Calendar, & java.text.SimpleDateFormat.

The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to java.time.

To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations.

Much of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport and further adapted to Android in ThreeTenABP (see How to use…).

The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time.

Anglia

Here are code examples of formatting with Java 8 Time API: https://mcmap.net/q/80135/-convert-java-util-date-to-string – Orna

this code does not work OffsetDateTime odt = instant.atOffset( ZoneOffset.UTC ); odt.toString(): 2014-11-14T14:05:09+00:00 Is there a new Java 8 code to have the same format 2014-11-14T14:05:09+00:00 ? Thank you – Plunk

@BobBolden You are correct, Z is used instead of +00:00 by default. I fixed the Answer, thanks. FYI, those mean the same thing: Z, pronounced “Zulu” means an offset of zero hours-minutes-seconds, the same as +00:00. The ISO 8601 standard supports both styles. – Anglia

@BasilBourque sorry, this is unclear. I have Java 8 and there is no instant.atOffset() at all. Could you please advice what should be the correct code for Java 8 to have exactly the same format 2014-11-14T14:05:09+00:00 without instant.atOffset() ? I'm a bit lost :( – Plunk

@BobBolden There is indeed an atOffset method on Instant class in Java 8. See Javadoc: Instant::atOffset. In Java 8, a call like Instant.now().atOffset( ZoneOffset.UTC ).toString() will run. Check your import statements. Verify your IDE/project is set to run Java 8 or later rather than an earlier version of Java. See the code run live at IdeOne.com: ideone.com/2Vm2O5 – Anglia

Answer 5

Altenative one-liners in plain-old java:

String.format("The date: %tY-%tm-%td", date, date, date);

String.format("The date: %1$tY-%1$tm-%1$td", date);

String.format("Time with tz: %tY-%<tm-%<td %<tH:%<tM:%<tS.%<tL%<tz", date);

String.format("The date and time in ISO format: %tF %<tT", date);

This uses Formatter and relative indexing instead of SimpleDateFormat which is not thread-safe, btw.

Slightly more repetitive but needs just one statement. This may be handy in some cases.

Orna

This is (in)genius. Much better performance for constrained environments – Pliny

For beginners: import java.util.Date; and declare Date date= new Date(); to make this code example complete. If it's not obvious from the question already. – Krasner

Answer 6

Why don't you use Joda (org.joda.time.DateTime)? It's basically a one-liner.

Date currentDate = GregorianCalendar.getInstance().getTime();
String output = new DateTime( currentDate ).toString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");

// output: 2014-11-14 14:05:09

Truehearted

I suggest passing a DateTimeZone as well, rather than assign the JVM’s current default time zone to the DateTime object. new DateTime( currentDate , DateTimeZone.forID( "America/Montreal" ) ) – Anglia

Answer 7

It looks like you are looking for SimpleDateFormat.

Format: yyyy-MM-dd kk:mm:ss

Peccable

Does the "kk" do anything special? I think Eric wants it in 24-hour time. – Retention

Yes, the hour in day (1-24), but this is likely not what the OP needs. HH (0-23) is more common. – Cravat

@Cahrlie Salts kk goes from 1-24, where HH goes from 0-23, and it probably was a bit presumptuous of me to assume he wanted 1-24 @Cravat The DateFormat object both parses and formats. – Peccable

I don't understand the relevance of your last comment. My comment was to Charlie. – Cravat

I'm used to .Net formats, where HH is 24-time, and hh is am/pm. Hence the head-scratching. – Retention

@Cravat Before it was edited or removed, it was mentioned that my solution did not solve the OP's question. – Peccable

Answer 8

In single shot ;)

To get the Date

String date = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd",   Locale.getDefault()).format(new Date());

To get the Time

String time = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm", Locale.getDefault()).format(new Date());

To get the date and time

String dateTime = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss", Locale.getDefaut()).format(new Date());

Happy coding :)

Sandbox

FYI, the troublesome old date-time classes such as java.util.Date, java.util.Calendar, and java.text.SimpleDateFormat are now legacy, supplanted by the java.time classes built into Java 8 & Java 9. See Tutorial by Oracle. – Anglia

Answer 9

public static String formateDate(String dateString) {
    Date date;
    String formattedDate = "";
    try {
        date = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss",Locale.getDefault()).parse(dateString);
        formattedDate = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy",Locale.getDefault()).format(date);
    } catch (ParseException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    return formattedDate;
}

Parathyroid

Answer 10

Here are examples of using new Java 8 Time API to format legacy java.util.Date:

    DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss:SSS Z")
        .withZone(ZoneOffset.UTC);
    String utcFormatted = formatter.format(date.toInstant()); 

    ZonedDateTime utcDatetime = date.toInstant().atZone(ZoneOffset.UTC);
    String utcFormatted2 = utcDatetime.format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss:SSS Z"));
    // gives the same as above

    ZonedDateTime localDatetime = date.toInstant().atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault());
    String localFormatted = localDatetime.format(DateTimeFormatter.ISO_ZONED_DATE_TIME);
    // 2011-12-03T10:15:30+01:00[Europe/Paris]

    String nowFormatted = LocalDateTime.now().toString(); // 2007-12-03T10:15:30.123

It is nice about DateTimeFormatter that it can be efficiently cached as it is thread-safe (unlike SimpleDateFormat).

List of predefined fomatters and pattern notation reference.

Credits:

How to parse/format dates with LocalDateTime? (Java 8)

Java8 java.util.Date conversion to java.time.ZonedDateTime

Format Instant to String

What's the difference between java 8 ZonedDateTime and OffsetDateTime?

Orna

Answer 11

If you only need the time from the date, you can just use the feature of String.

Date test = new Date();
String dayString = test.toString();
String timeString = dayString.substring( 11 , 19 );

This will automatically cut the time part of the String and save it inside the timeString.

Stretto

This may break with different locale. – Orna

Answer 12

The easiest way to use it is as following:

currentISODate = new Date().parse("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss", "2013-04-14T16:11:48.000");

where "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss" is the format of the reading date

output: Sun Apr 14 16:11:48 EEST 2013

Notes: HH vs hh - HH refers to 24h time format - hh refers to 12h time format

Sligo

The question is about opposite conversion. – Orna

Answer 13

public static void main(String[] args) 
{
    Date d = new Date();
    SimpleDateFormat form = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-mm-yyyy hh:mm:ss");
    System.out.println(form.format(d));
    String str = form.format(d); // or if you want to save it in String str
    System.out.println(str); // and print after that
}

Whitton

Answer 14

Let's try this

public static void main(String args[]) {

    Calendar cal = GregorianCalendar.getInstance();
    Date today = cal.getTime();
    DateFormat df7 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");

    try {           
        String str7 = df7.format(today);
        System.out.println("String in yyyy-MM-dd format is: " + str7);          
    } catch (Exception ex) {
      ex.printStackTrace();
    }
}

Or a utility function

public String convertDateToString(Date date, String format) {
    String dateStr = null;
    DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat(format);

    try {
        dateStr = df.format(date);
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        ex.printStackTrace();
    }
    return dateStr;
}

From Convert Date to String in Java

Sheldonshelduck

Answer 15

    SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
    String date = "2010-05-30 22:15:52";
    java.util.Date formatedDate = sdf.parse(date); // returns a String when it is parsed
    System.out.println(sdf.format(formatedDate)); // the use of format function returns a String

Erskine

Answer 16

One Line option

This option gets a easy one-line to write the actual date.

Please, note that this is using Calendar.class and SimpleDateFormat, and then it's not logical to use it under Java8.

yourstringdate =  new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss").format(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());

Vanillic

FYI, the terribly troublesome date-time classes such as java.util.Date, java.util.Calendar, and java.text.SimpleDateFormat are now legacy, supplanted by the java.time classes built into Java 8 and later. See Tutorial by Oracle. – Anglia

(1) The answer is wrong (I just got 2019-20-23 09:20:22 — month 20??) (2) I can’t see that the answer provides anything that isn’t already covered in other answers. (3) Please don’t teach the young ones to use the long outdated and notoriously troublesome SimpleDateFormat class. At least not as the first option. And not without any reservation. Today we have so much better in java.time, the modern Java date and time API, and its DateTimeFormatter. – Alrich

Yeah.... I did a mistake and forget to correct it. I added it at quickly way, and didn´t remember .. sorry!! and thanks for your comments guys – Decillion

@OleV.V. Not everybody has access to the Modern Java data and time api...... so ... It´s also valid this answer... – Decillion

Thanks for your comment. If you want to provide an answer for Java 5, or for Java 6 and 7 without any external dependency, very fine, that’s welcome, only please make explicit that that is what you are doing. And your answer is still wrong, you will get surprises around New Year. – Alrich

Hahahaha, I think I have not a good day. I just wrote it down quickly to complete this page, as I thought mi line was ok, and as I said I corrected it in my code, but not here.... hahhaha Thanks for the point @OleV.V. – Decillion

Answer 17

Date date = new Date();
String strDate = String.format("%tY-%<tm-%<td %<tH:%<tM:%<tS", date);

Camarata

Answer 18

If you want to include timezone information in the resultant string:

public String getFormattedDate(Date date) {
    SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXX");
    sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
    return sdf.format(date);
}

Blaney

Suggesting the use of the terribly flawed legacy date-time classes in 2023 is poor advice. – Anglia