Parse any date in Java

Question

I know this question is asked quite a bit, and obviously you can\'t parse any arbitrary date. However, I find that the python-dateutil library is able to parse every date I

Answer 1

Your best bet is really asking help to regex to match the date format pattern and/or to do brute forcing.

Several years ago I wrote a little silly DateUtil class which did the job. Here's an extract of relevance:

private static final Map DATE_FORMAT_REGEXPS = new HashMap() {{
    put("^\\d{8}$", "yyyyMMdd");
    put("^\\d{1,2}-\\d{1,2}-\\d{4}$", "dd-MM-yyyy");
    put("^\\d{4}-\\d{1,2}-\\d{1,2}$", "yyyy-MM-dd");
    put("^\\d{1,2}/\\d{1,2}/\\d{4}$", "MM/dd/yyyy");
    put("^\\d{4}/\\d{1,2}/\\d{1,2}$", "yyyy/MM/dd");
    put("^\\d{1,2}\\s[a-z]{3}\\s\\d{4}$", "dd MMM yyyy");
    put("^\\d{1,2}\\s[a-z]{4,}\\s\\d{4}$", "dd MMMM yyyy");
    put("^\\d{12}$", "yyyyMMddHHmm");
    put("^\\d{8}\\s\\d{4}$", "yyyyMMdd HHmm");
    put("^\\d{1,2}-\\d{1,2}-\\d{4}\\s\\d{1,2}:\\d{2}$", "dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm");
    put("^\\d{4}-\\d{1,2}-\\d{1,2}\\s\\d{1,2}:\\d{2}$", "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm");
    put("^\\d{1,2}/\\d{1,2}/\\d{4}\\s\\d{1,2}:\\d{2}$", "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm");
    put("^\\d{4}/\\d{1,2}/\\d{1,2}\\s\\d{1,2}:\\d{2}$", "yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm");
    put("^\\d{1,2}\\s[a-z]{3}\\s\\d{4}\\s\\d{1,2}:\\d{2}$", "dd MMM yyyy HH:mm");
    put("^\\d{1,2}\\s[a-z]{4,}\\s\\d{4}\\s\\d{1,2}:\\d{2}$", "dd MMMM yyyy HH:mm");
    put("^\\d{14}$", "yyyyMMddHHmmss");
    put("^\\d{8}\\s\\d{6}$", "yyyyMMdd HHmmss");
    put("^\\d{1,2}-\\d{1,2}-\\d{4}\\s\\d{1,2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}$", "dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss");
    put("^\\d{4}-\\d{1,2}-\\d{1,2}\\s\\d{1,2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}$", "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
    put("^\\d{1,2}/\\d{1,2}/\\d{4}\\s\\d{1,2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}$", "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
    put("^\\d{4}/\\d{1,2}/\\d{1,2}\\s\\d{1,2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}$", "yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss");
    put("^\\d{1,2}\\s[a-z]{3}\\s\\d{4}\\s\\d{1,2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}$", "dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss");
    put("^\\d{1,2}\\s[a-z]{4,}\\s\\d{4}\\s\\d{1,2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}$", "dd MMMM yyyy HH:mm:ss");
}};

/**
 * Determine SimpleDateFormat pattern matching with the given date string. Returns null if
 * format is unknown. You can simply extend DateUtil with more formats if needed.
 * @param dateString The date string to determine the SimpleDateFormat pattern for.
 * @return The matching SimpleDateFormat pattern, or null if format is unknown.
 * @see SimpleDateFormat
 */
public static String determineDateFormat(String dateString) {
    for (String regexp : DATE_FORMAT_REGEXPS.keySet()) {
        if (dateString.toLowerCase().matches(regexp)) {
            return DATE_FORMAT_REGEXPS.get(regexp);
        }
    }
    return null; // Unknown format.
}

(cough, double brace initialization, cough, it was just to get it all to fit in 100 char max length ;) )

You can easily expand it yourself with new regex and dateformat patterns.