How to parse dates in multiple formats using SimpleDateFormat

user_229072 0
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I am trying to parse some dates that are coming out of a document. It would appear users have entered these dates in a similar but not exact format.

here are the formats:

9/09
9/2009
09/2009
9/1/2009
9-1-2009

What is the best way to go about trying to parse all of these? These seem to be the most common, but I guess what is hanging me up is that if i have a pattern of "M/yyyy" wont that always catch before "MM/yyyy" Do I have to set up my try/catch blocks nested in a least restrictive to most restrictive way? it seems like it sure is going to take a lot of code duplication to get this right.

simpledateformat datetime parsing java
13 Answers

If working in Java 1.8 you can leverage the DateTimeFormatterBuilder

public static boolean isTimeStampValid(String inputString)
{
    DateTimeFormatterBuilder dateTimeFormatterBuilder = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
            .append(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("" + "[yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ]" + "[yyyy-MM-dd]"));

    DateTimeFormatter dateTimeFormatter = dateTimeFormatterBuilder.toFormatter();

    try {
        dateTimeFormatter.parse(inputString);
        return true;
    } catch (DateTimeParseException e) {
        return false;
    }
}

See post: Java 8 Date equivalent to Joda's DateTimeFormatterBuilder with multiple parser formats?

user_53434500

Best and Simple Java 8 answer (from https://stackoverflow.com/a/59546290/2131040)

final DateTimeFormatterBuilder dtfb = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder();
dtfb.appendOptional(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSSSSSSSS"))
.appendOptional(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSSSSSSS"))
.appendOptional(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSSSSSS"))
.appendOptional(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS"))
.appendOptional(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSSSS"))
.appendOptional(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSSS"))
    .appendOptional(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS"))
    .appendOptional(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SS"))
    .appendOptional(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.S"))
    .parseDefaulting(ChronoField.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0)
    .parseDefaulting(ChronoField.MINUTE_OF_HOUR, 0)
    .parseDefaulting(ChronoField.SECOND_OF_MINUTE, 0);
user_21310400

I'm solved this problem more simple way using regex

fun parseTime(time: String?): Long {
    val longRegex = "\\d{4}+-\\d{2}+-\\d{2}+\\w\\d{2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}.\\d{3}[Z]\$"
    val shortRegex = "\\d{4}+-\\d{2}+-\\d{2}+\\w\\d{2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}Z\$"

    val longDateFormat = SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.sssXXX")
    val shortDateFormat = SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssXXX")

    return when {
        Pattern.matches(longRegex, time) -> longDateFormat.parse(time).time
        Pattern.matches(shortRegex, time) -> shortDateFormat.parse(time).time
        else -> throw InvalidParamsException(INVALID_TIME_MESSAGE, null)
    }
}
user_98017100

Implemented the same in scala, Please help urself with converting to Java, the core logic and functions used stays the same. 

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat
import org.apache.commons.lang.time.DateUtils

object MultiDataFormat {
  def main(args: Array[String]) {

val dates =Array("2015-10-31","26/12/2015","19-10-2016")

val possibleDateFormats:Array[String] = Array("yyyy-MM-dd","dd/MM/yyyy","dd-MM-yyyy")

val sdf =  new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd") //change it as per the requirement
  for (date<-dates) {
    val outputDate = DateUtils.parseDateStrictly(date, possibleDateFormats)
    System.out.println("inputDate ==> " + date + ", outputDate ==> " +outputDate + " " + sdf.format(outputDate) )
  }
}

}

user_34137670

Using DateTimeFormatter it can be achieved as below:


import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.ZoneOffset;
import java.time.ZonedDateTime;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.time.temporal.TemporalAccessor;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.TimeZone;

public class DateTimeFormatTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        String pattern = "[yyyy-MM-dd[['T'][ ]HH:mm:ss[.SSSSSSSz][.SSS[XXX][X]]]]";
        String timeSample = "2018-05-04T13:49:01.7047141Z";
        SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yy HH:mm:ss");
        DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern(pattern);
        TemporalAccessor accessor = formatter.parse(timeSample);
        ZonedDateTime zTime = LocalDateTime.from(accessor).atZone(ZoneOffset.UTC);

        Date date=new Date(zTime.toEpochSecond()*1000);
        simpleDateFormatter.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone(ZoneOffset.UTC));
        System.out.println(simpleDateFormatter.format(date));       
    }
}

Pay attention at String pattern, this is the combination of multiple patterns. In open [ and close ] square brackets you can mention any kind of patterns.

user_61758630

I was having multiple date formats into json, and was extracting csv with universal format. I looked multiple places, tried different ways, but at the end I'm able to convert with the following simple code. 

private String getDate(String anyDateFormattedString) {
    @SuppressWarnings("deprecation")
    Date date = new Date(anyDateFormattedString);
    SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(yourDesiredDateFormat);
        String convertedDate = dateFormat.format(date);
    return convertedDate;
}
user_78669800
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