How to convert String to Date in java?

The SimpleDateFormat class offers a method called parse( ), which can be used to parse a string into java.util.Date object 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″

parse(String text):

This method is used to parse date/time string into date. The return type of this method is Date. This method throws ParseExceptionParse Exception if the given string cannot be parsed as a date.



For example:

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

public class StringToDate {

 public static void main(String[] args) {
  try {

   String str_date = "12-12-1987:10:20:56";
   SimpleDateFormat formatter;
   Date date;

   formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy:hh:mm:ss");
   date = (Date) formatter.parse(str_date);

   System.out.println("Created Date object is:" + date);

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

 }

}

The output is

Created Date object is:Sat Dec 12 10:20:56 IST 1987

The links that may help you:

• How to Format Dates and Times using SimpleDateFormat in Java
• Convert date string from one format to another format using SimpleDateFormat