Question

The following code causes an “Unparseable date” exception when executed. Is there any way I can tell SimpleDateFormat the date string must ends with 00?

public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
    SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMddHHmmss00");
    try {
        Date date = format.parse("2009030916301600");
    } catch (ParseException ex) {
        System.out.println("Exception" + ex);
    }
}

}

Answer 1

Use singlequotes to represent literal text.

SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMddHHmmss'00'");

See also:

• java.text.SimpleDateFormat javadoc

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Update: it didn’t work here after a quick test. I suspect an uncovered corner case in javadoc. After all, you can just leave them away.

SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMddHHmmss");

Alternatively, you can also use S to represent them as milliseconds. It won’t affect the final result since it’s zero anyway.

SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMddHHmmssS");