There are three major problems in your code:
- You have used
.SSSSSS for the fraction of a second whereas the SimpleDateFormat does not support a precision beyond milliseconds (.SSS). It also means that you need to limit the digits in the fraction of a second to three.
- You have used
Z to parse the timezone offset, -05:00 whereas the correct pattern for this is XXX.
- You have used
hh for a time in 24-Hour format whereas the correct pattern for this is HH. The symbol, hh is used for a time in 12-Hour (i.e. with am/pm) format.
Apart from this, I recommend you always use Locale with a date parsing/formatting API because parts of a date-time string are represented in different ways in different Locales.
Demo:
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Locale;
import java.util.TimeZone;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXX", Locale.ENGLISH);
Date date = sdf.parse("2011-04-11T22:27:18.491-05:00");
// Print the default string i.e. Date#toString
System.out.println(date);
// Print the date-time in a custom format
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-05:00"));
System.out.println(sdf.format(date));
}
}
Output:
Tue Apr 12 04:27:18 BST 2011
2011-04-11T22:27:18.491-05:00
Some facts about legacy date-time API:
- The
java.util.Date object is not a real date-time object like the modern date-time types; rather, it represents the number of milliseconds since the standard base time known as "the epoch", namely January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT (or UTC). When you print an object of java.util.Date, its toString method returns the date-time in the JVM's timezone, calculated from this milliseconds value. If you need to print the date-time in a different timezone, you will need to set the timezone to SimpleDateFormat and obtain the formatted string from it.
- The
java.util date-time API and their formatting API, SimpleDateFormat are outdated and error-prone. It is recommended to stop using them completely and switch to the modern date-time API* .
Using modern date-time API:
import java.time.OffsetDateTime;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
OffsetDateTime odt = OffsetDateTime.parse("2011-04-11T22:27:18.491726-05:00");
// Print the default string i.e. OffsetDateTime#toString
System.out.println(odt);
// Print the date-time in a custom format. Note: OffsetDateTime#toString drops
// seconds if it is zero
DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("uuuu-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSSSSXXX");
System.out.println(dtf.format(odt));
}
}
Output:
2011-04-11T22:27:18.491726-05:00
2011-04-11T22:27:18.491726-05:00
Note: For DateTimeFormatter, the symbol, u means year whereas the symbol, y means year-of-era. It doesn't make any difference for a year in the [AD][2] era, but it matters for a year in the BC era. Check this answer to learn more about it.
Learn more about the modern date-time API from Trail: Date Time.
* For any reason, if you have to stick to Java 6 or Java 7, you can use ThreeTen-Backport which backports most of the java.time functionality to Java 6 & 7. If you are working for an Android project and your Android API level is still not compliant with Java-8, check Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring and How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project.
