Android parse String to Date - unknown pattern character 'X'

Question

I have Service fetch date string from web and then I want to pare it to Date object. But somehow application crashes. This is my string that I\'m parsi

Answer 1

Since Z and XXX are different, I've implemented the following workaround:

// This is a workaround from Z to XXX timezone format
new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ") {

    @Override
    public StringBuffer format(Date date, StringBuffer toAppendTo, FieldPosition pos) {
        StringBuffer rfcFormat = super.format(date, toAppendTo, pos);
        return rfcFormat.insert(rfcFormat.length() - 2, ":");
    }

    @Override
    public Date parse(String text, ParsePosition pos) {
        if (text.length() > 3) {
            text = text.substring(0, text.length() - 3) + text.substring(text.length() - 2);
        }
        return super.parse(text, pos);
    }
}

Answer 2

The Android version of SimpleDateFormat doesn't support the X pattern so XXX won't work but instead you can use ZZZZZ which does the same and outputs the timezone in format +02:00 (or -02:00 depending on the local timezone).

Answer 3

Android SimpleDateFormat is different from Java 7 SDK and does not support 'X' to parse ISO 8601. You can use the 'Z' or 'ZZZZZ' styles to format and programatically set the time zone to UTC. Here is a util class:

public class DateUtil {

    public static final String iso8601DatePattern = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZZZZZ";
    public static final DateFormat iso8601DateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(iso8601DatePattern);
    public static final TimeZone utcTimeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC");

    static {
        iso8601DateFormat.setTimeZone(utcTimeZone);
    }

    public static String formatAsIso8601(Date date) {

        return iso8601DateFormat.format(date);
    }
}

Answer 4

Simple solution:

Use this yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZZZZZ

Instead of yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXX

Done.

Answer 5

according to android documentation zone offset with X format is supporting in API level 24+

Letter  Date or Time Component      Supported (API Levels)
X       Time zone                   24+

so we can't use for lower APIs, I found a workaround for this issue:

SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ").format(date).let {
    StringBuilder(it).insert(it.length - 2, ":").toString()
}

Answer 6

No one has mentioned about this error occurring on pre-nougat devices so I thought to share my answer and maybe it is helpful for those who reached this thread because of it.

This answer rightly mentions that "X" is supported only for Nougat+ devices. I still see that documentation suggests to use "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXX" and not sure why they don't make this point explicit.

For me, yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssXXX was working fine until I tried to test it on 6.0 device and it started crashing which led me to research on this topic. Replacing it with yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZZZZZ has resolved the issue and works on all 5.0+ devices.