Convert date string from one format to another format using SimpleDateFormat

SimpleDateFormat is a concrete class for formatting (date -> text) and parsing(text -> date) dates in a locale-sensitive manner. 
The SimpleDateFormat class offers the following methods for  formatting and parsing:

Date parse(String text):

This parse( ) method can be used to parse a string into java.util.Date object according to the format stored in the given SimpleDateFormat object. The return type of this method is Date. This method throws ParseExceptionParse Exception if the given string cannot be parsed as a date


String format(Date date):

Formats the given Date into a date/time string according to the format stored in the given SimpleDateFormat object. 

A pattern of special characters is used to specify the format of the date.For example, dd/mm/yyyy, mm/dd/yyyy, yyyy-mm-dd, and so on.For a complete listing, see the table given below.

Date and Time Patterns

Date and time formats are specified by date and time pattern strings. Within date and time pattern strings, unquoted letters from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z' are interpreted as pattern letters representing the components of a date or time string. Text can be quoted using single quotes (') to avoid interpretation.All other characters are not interpreted; they're simply copied into the output string during formatting or matched against the input string during parsing.

The following pattern letters are defined (all other characters from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z' are reserved):

Symbol	Meaning	Type	Example
G	Era	Text	“GG” -> “AD”
y	Year	Number	“yy” -> “03″ “yyyy” -> “2003″
M	Month	Text or Number	“M” -> “7″ “M” -> “12″ “MM” -> “07″ “MMM” -> “Jul” “MMMM” -> “December”
d	Day in month	Number	“d” -> “3″ “dd” -> “03″
h	Hour (1-12, AM/PM)	Number	“h” -> “3″ “hh” -> “03″
H	Hour (0-23)	Number	“H” -> “15″ “HH” -> “15″
k	Hour (1-24)	Number	“k” -> “3″ “kk” -> “03″
K	Hour (0-11 AM/PM)	Number	“K” -> “15″ “KK” -> “15″
m	Minute	Number	“m” -> “7″ “m” -> “15″ “mm” -> “15″
s	Second	Number	“s” -> “15″ “ss” -> “15″
S	Millisecond (0-999)	Number	“SSS” -> “007″
E	Day in week	Text	“EEE” -> “Tue” “EEEE” -> “Tuesday”
D	Day in year (1-365 or 1-364)	Number	“D” -> “65″ “DDD” -> “065″
F	Day of week in month (1-5)	Number	“F” -> “1″
w	Week in year (1-53)	Number	“w” -> “7″
W	Week in month (1-5)	Number	“W” -> “3″
a	AM/PM	Text	“a” -> “AM” “aa” -> “AM”
z	Time zone	Text	“z” -> “EST” “zzz” -> “EST” “zzzz” -> “Eastern Standard Time”
‘	Excape for text	Delimiter	“‘hour’ h” -> “hour 9″
”	Single quote	Literal	“ss”SSS” -> “45’876″

The complete source code is given below:

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

public class ConvertDateFormats {

	public static void main(String[] args) {

		// string containing date in one format
		String strDate = "12/12/07";

		try {
			// create SimpleDateFormat object with source string date format
			SimpleDateFormat sdfSource = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yy");

			// parse the string into Date object
			Date date = sdfSource.parse(strDate);

			// create SimpleDateFormat object with desired date format
			SimpleDateFormat sdfDestination = new SimpleDateFormat(
					"MM-dd-yyyy hh:mm:ss");

			// parse the date into another format
			strDate = sdfDestination.format(date);

			System.out
					.println("Date is converted from dd/MM/yy format to MM-dd-yyyy hh:mm:ss");
			System.out.println("Converted date is : " + strDate);

		} catch (ParseException pe) {
			System.out.println("Parse Exception : " + pe);
		}
	}
}

The output is 

Date is converted from dd/MM/yy format to MM-dd-yyyy hh:mm:ss

Converted date is : 12-12-2007 12:00:00

The links that may help you:

• How to Format Dates and Times using SimpleDateFormat in Java
• How to convert String to Date in java?