Question

I am having following function

public static Date parseDate(String date, String format) throws ParseException
 {
         SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat(format);
         return formatter.parse(date);
 }

I am using this as follows in my code

Calendar eDate = Calendar.getInstance();
eDate.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH,10);
Date date = null;
  try {
   date = parseDate(eDate.getTime().toString(),"yyyy-MM-dd hh-mm-ss");
  } catch (ParseException e) {
   // TODO Auto-generated catch block
   e.printStackTrace();
  }

But it is throwing –

 java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date

What is the problem here?

Answer 1

The format is not stored in the Date. It is stored in the String. The Date#toString() returns a fixed format which is described in its Javadoc.

Do the formatting only at the moment you need to display a Date to a human as a String.

Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 10);
Date date = calendar.getTime();
String formattedDate = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss").format(date);
System.out.println(formattedDate);

Note that MM stands for months and mm for minutes. See also SimpleDateFormat javadoc.