SimpleDateFormat
is a concrete class for formatting and
parsing dates in a locale-sensitive manner. It allows for formatting
(date → text), parsing (text → date), and normalization.
SimpleDateFormat
allows you to start by choosing any user-defined patterns for date-time formatting. However, you are encouraged to create a date-time formatter with either getTimeInstance
, getDateInstance
, or getDateTimeInstance
in DateFormat
. Each of these class methods can return a date/time formatter initialized with a default format pattern. You may modify the format pattern using the applyPattern
methods as desired. For more information on using these methods, see {@link DateFormat}.
Date and time formats are specified by date and time pattern strings. Within date and time pattern strings, unquoted letters from 'A'
to 'Z'
and from 'a'
to 'z'
are interpreted as pattern letters representing the components of a date or time string. Text can be quoted using single quotes ('
) to avoid interpretation. "''"
represents a single quote. All other characters are not interpreted; they're simply copied into the output string during formatting or matched against the input string during parsing.
The following pattern letters are defined (all other characters from 'A'
to 'Z'
and from 'a'
to 'z'
are reserved):
Pattern letters are usually repeated, as their number determines the exact presentation:
Letter Date or Time Component Presentation Examples G
Era designator Text AD
y
Year Year 1996
;96
Y
Week year Year 2009
;09
M
Month in year (context sensitive) Month July
;Jul
;07
L
Month in year (standalone form) Month July
;Jul
;07
w
Week in year Number 27
W
Week in month Number 2
D
Day in year Number 189
d
Day in month Number 10
F
Day of week in month Number 2
E
Day name in week Text Tuesday
;Tue
u
Day number of week (1 = Monday, ..., 7 = Sunday) Number 1
a
Am/pm marker Text PM
H
Hour in day (0-23) Number 0
k
Hour in day (1-24) Number 24
K
Hour in am/pm (0-11) Number 0
h
Hour in am/pm (1-12) Number 12
m
Minute in hour Number 30
s
Second in minute Number 55
S
Millisecond Number 978
z
Time zone General time zone Pacific Standard Time
;PST
;GMT-08:00
Z
Time zone RFC 822 time zone -0800
X
Time zone ISO 8601 time zone -08
;-0800
;-08:00
SimpleDateFormat
must interpret the abbreviated year relative to some century. It does this by adjusting dates to be within 80 years before and 20 years after the time the SimpleDateFormat
instance is created. For example, using a pattern of "MM/dd/yy" and a SimpleDateFormat
instance created on Jan 1, 1997, the string "01/11/12" would be interpreted as Jan 11, 2012 while the string "05/04/64" would be interpreted as May 4, 1964. During parsing, only strings consisting of exactly two digits, as defined by {@link Character#isDigit(char)}, will be parsed into the default century. Any other numeric string, such as a one digit string, a three or more digit string, or a two digit string that isn't all digits (for example, "-1"), is interpreted literally. So "01/02/3" or "01/02/003" are parsed, using the same pattern, as Jan 2, 3 AD. Likewise, "01/02/-3" is parsed as Jan 2, 4 BC. GMTOffsetTimeZone:Hours must be between 0 and 23, and Minutes must be between 00 and 59. The format is locale independent and digits must be taken from the Basic Latin block of the Unicode standard.GMT
Sign Hours:
Minutes Sign: one of+ -
Hours: Digit Digit Digit Minutes: Digit Digit Digit: one of0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
For parsing, RFC 822 time zones are also accepted.
RFC822TimeZone: Sign TwoDigitHours Minutes TwoDigitHours: Digit Digit
TwoDigitHours must be between 00 and 23. Other definitions
are as for general time zones.
For parsing, general time zones are also accepted.
ISO8601TimeZone: OneLetterISO8601TimeZone TwoLetterISO8601TimeZone ThreeLetterISO8601TimeZone OneLetterISO8601TimeZone: Sign TwoDigitHours {@code Z} TwoLetterISO8601TimeZone: Sign TwoDigitHours Minutes {@code Z} ThreeLetterISO8601TimeZone: Sign TwoDigitHours {@code :} Minutes {@code Z}Other definitions are as for general time zones or RFC 822 time zones.
For formatting, if the offset value from GMT is 0, {@code "Z"} is produced. If the number of pattern letters is 1, any fraction of an hour is ignored. For example, if the pattern is {@code "X"} and the time zone is {@code "GMT+05:30"}, {@code "+05"} is produced.
For parsing, {@code "Z"} is parsed as the UTC time zone designator. General time zones are not accepted.
If the number of pattern letters is 4 or more, {@link IllegalArgumentException} is thrown when constructing a {@code SimpleDateFormat} or {@linkplain #applyPattern(String) applying a pattern}. SimpleDateFormat
also supports localized date and time pattern strings. In these strings, the pattern letters described above may be replaced with other, locale dependent, pattern letters. SimpleDateFormat
does not deal with the localization of text other than the pattern letters; that's up to the client of the class.
The following examples show how date and time patterns are interpreted in
the U.S. locale. The given date and time are 2001-07-04 12:08:56 local time
in the U.S. Pacific Time time zone.
Date and Time Pattern Result "yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z"
2001.07.04 AD at 12:08:56 PDT
"EEE, MMM d, ''yy"
Wed, Jul 4, '01
"h:mm a"
12:08 PM
"hh 'o''clock' a, zzzz"
12 o'clock PM, Pacific Daylight Time
"K:mm a, z"
0:08 PM, PDT
"yyyyy.MMMMM.dd GGG hh:mm aaa"
02001.July.04 AD 12:08 PM
"EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z"
Wed, 4 Jul 2001 12:08:56 -0700
"yyMMddHHmmssZ"
010704120856-0700
"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ"
2001-07-04T12:08:56.235-0700
"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXX"
2001-07-04T12:08:56.235-07:00
"YYYY-'W'ww-u"
2001-W27-3
Date formats are not synchronized. It is recommended to create separate format instances for each thread. If multiple threads access a format concurrently, it must be synchronized externally.
@see Java Tutorial
@see java.util.Calendar
@see java.util.TimeZone
@see DateFormat
@see DateFormatSymbols
@author Mark Davis, Chen-Lieh Huang, Alan Liu