Question

I know it’s a common question but I couldn’t find how to store a java.util.Date object in MySQL.

Is it possible? if not what kind of solution you reccomand me since I need this accurate time stored in my MySQL database.

Answer 1

Have a look at the Calendar class.

Simply call Calendar.getInstance() to grab yourself an instance, then you can use get(Calendar.YEAR); to get the year, get(Calendar.DAY); to get the day, and so on.

You can set the time in a similar way by using the set() method.

If you want to convert this to a date object, use the getTime(); method, and if you want to format the date into a string then have a look at SimpleDateFormat.

As a general example:

Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
c.set(2012, 11, 1, 10, 10); //Sets c to 10:10, 1st December 2012
Date date = c.getTime(); //If you want the calendar object as a date
int day = c.get(Calendar.DAY); //Get the current day in the calendar as an integer
String format = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss DD-MM-YYYY").format(c.getTime()); //Print date as a string

You can also use a SimpleDateFormat object to parse the date like so:

Date d = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss DD-MM-YYYY").parse("10:10:00 01-12-12");

If you’re using the SimpleDateFormat more than once, then best to have it as a separate variable rather than keep recreating it.