Question

Earlier I posted the following question: How can I convert this date in Java?

But now I would like to know how I can convert this string into a date/time.

2010-03-15T16:34:46Z

For example: 03/15/10

UPDATED:

String pattern = "MM/dd/yy 'at' HH:mm";
                Date date = new Date();
                try {
                    date = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern).parse(q.getUpdated_at());
                } catch (ParseException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
                dateText.setText(new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yy 'at' hh:mma").format(date));

Gives me a result like:

Mon Mar 15 16:34:50 MST 2010

How can I format it to be

03/15/10 at 4:34PM

?

Answer 1

In a nutshell, you want to convert a date in a string format to a date in another string format. You have:

2010-03-15T16:34:46Z

and you want

03/15/10 at 4:34PM

You don’t want to end up using java.util.Date object as you initially implied in your question. You also don’t want to use its toString() since that returns a fixed format as definied in its javadoc.

The answer of Bozho still applies. Use java.text.SimpleDateFormat. First, you need to parse the date in string format into a Date object so that you can format it back into another string format.

// First parse string in pattern "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'" to date object.
String dateString1 = "2010-03-15T16:34:46Z";
Date date = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'").parse(dateString1);

// Then format date object to string in pattern "MM/dd/yy 'at' h:mma".
String dateString2 = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yy 'at' h:mma").format(date);
System.out.println(dateString2); // 03/15/10 at 4:34PM