Change date format in a Java string

I've a String representing a date.

String date_s = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";

I'd like to convert it to a Date and output it in YYYY-MM-DD format.

> 2011-01-18

How can I achieve this?

---

Okay, based on the answers I retrieved below, here's something I've tried:

String date_s = " 2011-01-18 00:00:00.0"; 
SimpleDateFormat dt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss"); 
Date date = dt.parse(date_s); 
SimpleDateFormat dt1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyy-mm-dd");
System.out.println(dt1.format(date));

But it outputs 02011-00-1 instead of the desired 2011-01-18. What am I doing wrong?

Use LocalDateTime#parse() (or ZonedDateTime#parse() if the string happens to contain a time zone part) to parse a String in a certain pattern into a LocalDateTime.

String oldstring = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";
LocalDateTime datetime = LocalDateTime.parse(oldstring, DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.S"));

Use LocalDateTime#format() (or ZonedDateTime#format()) to format a LocalDateTime into a String in a certain pattern.

String newstring = datetime.format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd"));
System.out.println(newstring); // 2011-01-18

Or, when you're not on Java 8 yet, use SimpleDateFormat#parse() to parse a String in a certain pattern into a Date.

String oldstring = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";
Date date = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.S").parse(oldstring);

Use SimpleDateFormat#format() to format a Date into a String in a certain pattern.

String newstring = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd").format(date);
System.out.println(newstring); // 2011-01-18

###See also:

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4216745/java-string-to-date-conversion/

---

Update: as per your failed attempt: the patterns are case sensitive. Read the java.text.SimpleDateFormat javadoc what the individual parts stands for. So stands for example M for months and m for minutes. Also, years exist of four digits yyyy, not five yyyyy. Look closer at the code snippets I posted here above.

Formatting are CASE-SENSITIVE so USE MM for month not mm (this is for minute) and yyyy For Reference you can use following cheatsheet.

G	Era designator	Text	AD
y	Year	Year	1996; 96
Y	Week year	Year	2009; 09
M	Month in year	Month	July; Jul; 07
w	Week in year	Number	27
W	Week in month	Number	2
D	Day in year	Number	189
d	Day in month	Number	10
F	Day of week in month	Number	2
E	Day name in week	Text	Tuesday; Tue
u	Day number of week (1 = Monday, ..., 7 = Sunday)	Number	1
a	Am/pm marker	Text	PM
H	Hour in day (0-23)	Number	0
k	Hour in day (1-24)	Number	24
K	Hour in am/pm (0-11)	Number	0
h	Hour in am/pm (1-12)	Number	12
m	Minute in hour	Number	30
s	Second in minute	Number	55
S	Millisecond	Number	978
z	Time zone	General time zone	Pacific Standard Time; PST; GMT-08:00
Z	Time zone	RFC 822 time zone	-0800
X	Time zone	ISO 8601 time zone	-08; -0800; -08:00

Examples:

"yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z"	2001.07.04 AD at 12:08:56 PDT
"EEE, MMM d, ''yy"	Wed, Jul 4, '01
"h:mm a"	12:08 PM
"hh 'o''clock' a, zzzz"	12 o'clock PM, Pacific Daylight Time
"K:mm a, z"	0:08 PM, PDT
"yyyyy.MMMMM.dd GGG hh:mm aaa"	02001.July.04 AD 12:08 PM
"EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z"	Wed, 4 Jul 2001 12:08:56 -0700
"yyMMddHHmmssZ"	010704120856-0700
"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'"	 2001-07-04T12:08:56.235-0700
"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXX"	 2001-07-04T12:08:56.235-07:00
"YYYY-'W'ww-u"	2001-W27-3

The answer is of course to create a SimpleDateFormat object and use it to parse Strings to Date and to format Dates to Strings. If you've tried SimpleDateFormat and it didn't work, then please show your code and any errors you may receive.

Addendum: "mm" in the format String is not the same as "MM". Use MM for months and mm for minutes. Also, yyyyy is not the same as yyyy. e.g.,:

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

public class FormateDate {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
        String date_s = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";
        
        // *** note that it's "yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss" not "yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss"  
        SimpleDateFormat dt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss");
        Date date = dt.parse(date_s);
        
        // *** same for the format String below
        SimpleDateFormat dt1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
        System.out.println(dt1.format(date));
    }

}

Why not simply use this

Date convertToDate(String receivedDate) throws ParseException{
		SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy");
		Date date = formatter.parse(receivedDate);
		return date;
	}

Also, this is the other way :

DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
String requiredDate = df.format(new Date()).toString();

or

Date requiredDate = df.format(new Date());

Using the java.time package in Java 8 and later:

String date = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";
TemporalAccessor temporal = DateTimeFormatter
    .ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.S")
    .parse(date); // use parse(date, LocalDateTime::from) to get LocalDateTime
String output = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd").format(temporal);

[edited to include BalusC's corrections] The SimpleDateFormat class should do the trick:

String pattern = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.S";
SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern);
try {
  Date date = format.parse("2011-01-18 00:00:00.0");
  System.out.println(date);
} catch (ParseException e) {
  e.printStackTrace();
}

Please refer "Date and Time Patterns" here. http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html

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

public class DateConversionExample{

  public static void main(String arg[]){

	try{
	
	SimpleDateFormat sourceDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-DD HH:mm:ss");
			 
	Date date = sourceDateFormat.parse("2011-01-18 00:00:00.0");

	
	SimpleDateFormat targetDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
    System.out.println(targetDateFormat.format(date));
    
	}catch(ParseException e){
		e.printStackTrace();
	}
  }	

}

Other answers are correct, basically you had the wrong number of "y" characters in your pattern.

Time Zone

One more problem though… You did not address time zones. If you intended UTC, then you should have said so. If not, the answers are not complete. If all you want is the date portion without the time, then no issue. But if you do further work that may involve time, then you should be specifying a time zone.

Joda-Time

Here is the same kind of code but using the third-party open-source Joda-Time 2.3 library

// © 2013 Basil Bourque. This source code may be used freely forever by anyone taking full responsibility for doing so.

String date_s = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";

org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormatter formatter = org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormat.forPattern( "yyyy-MM-dd' 'HH:mm:ss.SSS" );
// By the way, if your date-time string conformed strictly to ISO 8601 including a 'T' rather than a SPACE ' ', you could
// use a formatter built into Joda-Time rather than specify your own: ISODateTimeFormat.dateHourMinuteSecondFraction().
// Like this:
//org.joda.time.DateTime dateTimeInUTC = org.joda.time.format.ISODateTimeFormat.dateHourMinuteSecondFraction().withZoneUTC().parseDateTime( date_s );

// Assuming the date-time string was meant to be in UTC (no time zone offset).
org.joda.time.DateTime dateTimeInUTC = formatter.withZoneUTC().parseDateTime( date_s );
System.out.println( "dateTimeInUTC: " + dateTimeInUTC );
System.out.println( "dateTimeInUTC (date only): " + org.joda.time.format.ISODateTimeFormat.date().print( dateTimeInUTC ) );
System.out.println( "" ); // blank line.

// Assuming the date-time string was meant to be in Kolkata time zone (formerly known as Calcutta). Offset is +5:30 from UTC (note the half-hour).
org.joda.time.DateTimeZone kolkataTimeZone = org.joda.time.DateTimeZone.forID( "Asia/Kolkata" );
org.joda.time.DateTime dateTimeInKolkata = formatter.withZone( kolkataTimeZone ).parseDateTime( date_s );
System.out.println( "dateTimeInKolkata: " + dateTimeInKolkata );
System.out.println( "dateTimeInKolkata (date only): " + org.joda.time.format.ISODateTimeFormat.date().print( dateTimeInKolkata ) );
// This date-time in Kolkata is a different point in the time line of the Universe than the dateTimeInUTC instance created above. The date is even different.
System.out.println( "dateTimeInKolkata adjusted to UTC: " + dateTimeInKolkata.toDateTime( org.joda.time.DateTimeZone.UTC ) );

When run…

dateTimeInUTC: 2011-01-18T00:00:00.000Z
dateTimeInUTC (date only): 2011-01-18

dateTimeInKolkata: 2011-01-18T00:00:00.000+05:30
dateTimeInKolkata (date only): 2011-01-18
dateTimeInKolkata adjusted to UTC: 2011-01-17T18:30:00.000Z

try
 {
    String date_s = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";
    SimpleDateFormat simpledateformat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.S");
    Date tempDate=simpledateformat.parse(date_s);
    SimpleDateFormat outputDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");           
    System.out.println("Output date is = "+outputDateFormat.format(tempDate));
  } catch (ParseException ex) 
  {
        System.out.println("Parse Exception");
  }

You can just use:

Date yourDate = new Date();

SimpleDateFormat DATE_FORMAT = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
String date = DATE_FORMAT.format(yourDate);

It works perfectly!

public class SystemDateTest {

	String stringDate;
	
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		SystemDateTest systemDateTest = new SystemDateTest();
		// format date into String
		SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy hh:mm:ss");
		systemDateTest.setStringDate(simpleDateFormat.format(systemDateTest.getDate()));
		System.out.println(systemDateTest.getStringDate());
	}
	
	public Date getDate() {
		return new Date();
	}

	public String getStringDate() {
		return stringDate;
	}

	public void setStringDate(String stringDate) {
		this.stringDate = stringDate;
	}
}

   String str = "2000-12-12";
   Date dt = null;
   SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
  
    try 
    {
         dt = formatter.parse(str);
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
    }
    
    JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, formatter.format(dt));

You can also use substring()

String date_s = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";
date_s.substring(0,10);

If you want a space in front of the date, use

String date_s = " 2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";
date_s.substring(1,11);

You could try Java 8 new date, more information can be found on the Oracle documentation.

Or you can try the old one

public static Date getDateFromString(String format, String dateStr) {

	DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat(format);
	Date date = null;
	try {
		date = (Date) formatter.parse(dateStr);
	} catch (ParseException e) {
		e.printStackTrace();
	}

	return date;
}

public static String getDate(Date date, String dateFormat) {
	DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat(dateFormat);
	return formatter.format(date);
}

private SimpleDateFormat dataFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");

@Override
public Component getTableCellRendererComponent(JTable table, Object value, boolean isSelected, boolean hasFocus, int row, int column) {
    if(value instanceof Date) {
        value = dataFormat.format(value);
    }
    return super.getTableCellRendererComponent(table, value, isSelected, hasFocus, row, column);
};

remove one y form the format provide to:

SimpleDateFormat dt1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyy-mm-dd");

It should be:

SimpleDateFormat dt1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-mm-dd");

We can convert Today's date in the format of 'JUN 12, 2020'.

String.valueOf(DateFormat.getDateInstance().format(new Date())));

/**
 * Method will take Date in "MMMM, dd yyyy HH:mm:s" format and return time difference like added: 3 min ago
 *
 * @param date : date in "MMMM, dd yyyy HH:mm:s" format
 * @return : time difference
 */
private String getDurationTimeStamp(String date) {
    String timeDifference = "";

    //date formatter as per the coder need
    SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM, dd yyyy HH:mm:s");
    TimeZone timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone("EST");
    sdf.setTimeZone(timeZone);
    Date startDate = null;
    try {
        startDate = sdf.parse(date);
    } catch (ParseException e) {
        MyLog.printStack(e);
    }

    //end date will be the current system time to calculate the lapse time difference
    Date endDate = new Date();

    //get the time difference in milliseconds
    long duration = endDate.getTime() - startDate.getTime();

    long diffInSeconds = TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toSeconds(duration);
    long diffInMinutes = TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toMinutes(duration);
    long diffInHours = TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toHours(duration);
    long diffInDays = TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toDays(duration);

    if (diffInDays >= 365) {
        int year = (int) (diffInDays / 365);
        timeDifference = year + mContext.getString(R.string.year_ago);
    } else if (diffInDays >= 30) {
        int month = (int) (diffInDays / 30);
        timeDifference = month + mContext.getString(R.string.month_ago);
    }
    //if days are not enough to create year then get the days
    else if (diffInDays >= 1) {
        timeDifference = diffInDays + mContext.getString(R.string.day_ago);
    }
    //if days value<1 then get the hours
    else if (diffInHours >= 1) {
        timeDifference = diffInHours + mContext.getString(R.string.hour_ago);
    }
    //if hours value<1 then get the minutes
    else if (diffInMinutes >= 1) {
        timeDifference = diffInMinutes + mContext.getString(R.string.min_ago);
    }
    //if minutes value<1 then get the seconds
    else if (diffInSeconds >= 1) {
        timeDifference = diffInSeconds + mContext.getString(R.string.sec_ago);
    } else if (timeDifference.isEmpty()) {
        timeDifference = mContext.getString(R.string.now);
    }

    return mContext.getString(R.string.added) + " " + timeDifference;
}

java.time

The java.util Date-Time API and their formatting API, SimpleDateFormat are outdated and error-prone. It is recommended to stop using them completely and switch to the modern Date-Time API^*.

Also, quoted below is a notice from the home page of Joda-Time:

> Note that from Java SE 8 onwards, users are asked to migrate to java.time (JSR-310) - a core part of the JDK which replaces this project.

Solution using java.time, the modern Date-Time API:

import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.util.Locale;

public class Main {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		String strDate = "2011-01-18 00:00:00.0";
		DateTimeFormatter dtfInput = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("u-M-d H:m:s.S", Locale.ENGLISH);
		LocalDateTime ldt = LocalDateTime.parse(strDate, dtfInput);
		// Alternatively, the old way:
		// LocalDateTime ldt = dtfInput.parse(strDate, LocalDateTime::from);

		LocalDate date = ldt.toLocalDate();
		System.out.println(date);
	}
}

Output:

2011-01-18

ONLINE DEMO

Some important notes about the solution:

1. java.time made it possible to call parse and format functions on the Date-Time type itself, in addition to the old way (i.e. calling parse and format functions on the formatter type, which is DateTimeFormatter in case of java.time API).
2. The modern Date-Time API is based on ISO 8601 and does not require using a DateTimeFormatter object explicitly as long as the Date-Time string conforms to the ISO 8601 standards e.g. I have not used a DateTimeFormatter for the output because LocalDate#toString already returns the string in the required format.
3. Here, you can use y instead of u but I prefer u to y.

Learn more about the modern Date-Time API from Trail: Date Time.

---

^{* For any reason, if you have to stick to Java 6 or Java 7, you can use ThreeTen-Backport which backports most of the java.time functionality to Java 6 & 7. If you are working for an Android project and your Android API level is still not compliant with Java-8, check Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring and How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project.}

Say you want to change 2019-12-20 10:50 AM GMT+6:00 to 2019-12-20 10:50 AM first of all you have to understand the date format first one date format is yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm a zzz and second one date format will be yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm a

just return a string from this function like.

public String convertToOnlyDate(String currentDate) {
    SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm a ");
    Date date;
    String dateString = "";
    try {
        date = dateFormat.parse(currentDate);
        System.out.println(date.toString()); 

        dateString = dateFormat.format(date);
    } catch (ParseException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return dateString;
}

This function will return your desire answer. If you want to customize more just add or remove component from the date format.

you have some wrong: SimpleDateFormat dt1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyy-mm-dd");

first : should be new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-mm-dd"); //yyyy 4 not 5 this display 02011, but yyyy it disply 2011

second: change your code like this new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");

i hope help you

SimpleDateFormat dt1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-mm-dd");