Question

I use SimpleDataFormat for years. I never get this Exception

the program is below, I got this code of an example from the internet:

    public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Make a new Date object. It will be initialized to the
    // current time.
    Date now = new Date();

    // Print the result of toString()
    String dateString = now.toString();
    System.out.println(" 1. " + dateString);

    // Make a SimpleDateFormat for toString()'s output. This
    // has short (text) date, a space, short (text) month, a space,
    // 2-digit date, a space, hour (0-23), minute, second, a space,
    // short timezone, a final space, and a long year.
    SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy");

    // See if we can parse the output of Date.toString()
    try {
        Date parsed = format.parse(dateString);
        System.out.println(" 2. " + parsed.toString());
    }
    catch(ParseException pe) {
        System.out.println("ERROR: Cannot parse \"" + dateString + "\"");
    }

    // Print the result of formatting the now Date to see if the result
    // is the same as the output of toString()
    System.out.println(" 3. " + format.format(now));
}

Ok pretty Simple.

The result:

 1. Wed Aug 08 13:49:05 BRT 2012
    ERROR: Cannot parse "Wed Aug 08 13:49:05 BRT 2012"
 3. Qua Ago 08 13:49:05 BRT 2012

You see that the 2. thrown an error? For me it’s everything correct.

Is there any locale stuff I should set?

My O.S: Windows 7 Proffesional, Service Pack 1
JDK: jdk1.6.0_25

Answer 1

It looks like it’s a locale issue, yes. If you look at the output, it’s not using English month and day names – so it wouldn’t be able to parse them either. Try specifying English when you create the SimpleDateFormat:

SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy",
                                               Locale.US);