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

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

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");

Answer 3

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());

Answer 4

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

Answer 5

Try this,

import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;

public class Date
{
    public static void main(String[] args) 
    {
        SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
        String strDate = "2013-05-14 17:07:21";
        try
        {
           java.util.Date dt = sdf.parse(strDate);         
           System.out.println(sdf.format(dt));
        }
        catch (ParseException pe)
        {
            pe.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Output:

2013-05-14 17:07:21

For more on date and time formatting in java refer links below

Oracle Help Centre

Date time example in java

Answer 6

    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