java date format - GMT 0700 (PDT)

Question

This is the date format that I need to deal with

Wed Aug 21 2013 00:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)

But I don\'t get what the last two parts are. Is t

Answer 1

No, it is not fixed. It is a TimeZone. You can match it with Z in the date format.

To be more precise, in SimpleDateFormat formats :

• Z matches the -0700 part.
• GMT is fixed. Escape it with some quotes.
• z matches the PDT part. (PDT = Pacific Daylight Time).
• The parenthesis around PDT are fixed. Escape them with parenthesis.

You can parse your date with the following format :

EEE MMM dd yyyy HH:mm:ss 'GMT'Z '('z')'

Another remark : Wed Aug contains the day and month in English so you must use an english locale with your SimpleDateFormat or the translation will fail.

new SimpleDateFormat("*format*", Locale.ENGLISH);

Answer 2

Here is the Javadoc:

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html

For this example: Wed Aug 21 2013 00:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT), you'd want this format:

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

public class JavaDate {

  public static void main (String[] args) throws Exception {

    String s= "Wed Aug 21 2013 00:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)";
    SimpleDateFormat sdf = 
      new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd yyyy HH:mm:ss 'GMT'z '('Z')'");
    Date d = sdf.parse (s);
    System.out.println ("Date=" + d + "...");
  }
}

EXAMPLE OUTPUT: Date=Tue Aug 20 23:00:00 PDT 2013...

Thanx to Arnaud Denoyelle above for his edits!