display Java.util.Date in a specific format

Question

I have the following scenario :

SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(\"dd/MM/yyyy\");
System.out.println(dateFormat.parse(\"31/05/2011\"));


        

Answer 1

It makes no sense, but:

System.out.println(dateFormat.format(dateFormat.parse("31/05/2011")))

SimpleDateFormat.parse() = // parse Date from String
SimpleDateFormat.format() = // format Date into String

Answer 2

This will help you. DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy"); print (df.format(new Date());

Answer 3

If you want to simply output a date, just use the following:

System.out.printf("Date: %1$te/%1$tm/%1$tY at %1$tH:%1$tM:%1$tS%n", new Date());

As seen here. Or if you want to get the value into a String (for SQL building, for example) you can use:

String formattedDate = String.format("%1$te/%1$tm/%1$tY", new Date());

You can also customize your output by following the Java API on Date/Time conversions.

Answer 4

You need to go through SimpleDateFormat.format in order to format the date as a string.

Here's an example that goes from String -> Date -> String.

SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
Date date = dateFormat.parse("31/05/2011");

System.out.println(dateFormat.format(date));   // prints 31/05/2011
//                            ^^^^^^