Question

I am trying to parse an SQL date string (ISO 9075) and that uses microseconds(!) instead of milliseconds, for example

2010-11-22 08:08:08.123456

However, SimpleDateFormat refuses to recognize a pattern like “yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS” and “yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS” does not work, either.

The code I am using looks something like this:

String dateString = "2010-11-22 08:08:08.123456";
String pattern = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS";

try
{
    format = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern);
    format.setLenient(false);
    position.setIndex(0);
    Date date1 = format.parse(dateString, position);
    System.out.println("Date 1: " + date1);
    Date date2 = format.parse(dateString);
    System.out.println("Date 2: " + date1);
}
catch (Exception e) // Should not happen
{
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Whichever of the 2 patterns (“.SSS” or “.SSSSSS”) I use, date1 is printer as null, whereas date2 causes a parsing exception (java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date).

Answer 1

Maybe chop the remaining fraction part out of the dateString before parse the date? I have the following

    String dateString = "2010-11-22 08:08:08.123456";
    String fraction = dateString.substring(dateString.length() - 3);
    String formatString = dateString.substring(0, dateString.length() - 3);
    String pattern = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS";
    ParsePosition position = new ParsePosition(0);

    try
    {

        SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern);
        format.setLenient(false);
        position.setIndex(0);
        Date date1 = format.parse(formatString, position);          
        System.out.println("Date 1: " + date1);
        System.out.println("Date 1 fraction: " + fraction);
        Date date2 = format.parse(formatString);
        System.out.println("Date 2: " + date2);
        System.out.println("Date 2 fraction: " + fraction);
    }
    catch (Exception e) // Should not happen
    {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

This allow the date to parse until millisecond precision while you still retain the fraction micro part.