Question

When I parse a date with the year 0000 it appears to be stored as the year 0001.

See below for code:

String dateStr = "00000102";
System.out.println(dateStr);
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
Date date = dateFormat.parse("00000102");
String convertedStr = dateFormat.format(date);
System.out.println(convertedStr);

The output is as per below:

00000102
00010102

Is there a way to represent the year 0000 in Java using the standard Java API?

Answer 1

I don’t believe it’s possible, since java.util.Date is based on UTC, which is based on the Gregorian calendar, and the Gregorian calendar has no year zero.

…the traditional proleptic Gregorian calendar (like the Julian calendar) does not have a year 0 and instead uses the ordinal numbers 1, 2, … both for years AD and BC. Thus the traditional time line is 2 BC, 1 BC, AD 1, and AD 2.

(Source: The Wikipedia article on the Gregorian calendar)