How to convert a string to a date in Java, regardless of the system format [copy]

See English answers > parse any date in java3

public static String dateToString(String date){
    if(date.equals("")) return "";
    if(date == null || date.length() == 0){
        return "";
    }
    SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
    try {
        Date l_date =  format.parse(date);
        Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
        calendar.setTime(l_date);
        String year = String.format("%04d",calendar.get(Calendar.YEAR));
        String month = String.format("%02d",calendar.get(Calendar.MONTH));
        String day = String.format("%02d",calendar.get(Calendar.DATE));
        return year + month + day;
    } catch (ParseException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
        return "";
    }
}

For simpledateformat, it can only parse the encoding format I hear

dateToString("16/04/2015");

It can be converted to the above code However, when I try to use the following format

dateToString("Thursday,April 16,2015");

I went unparseable date: "Thursday, April 16, 2015" error

Solution

You are trying to convert strings in eeee, mmmm, DD, yyyy format using DD / mm / yyyy format

First, use the correct format of the string you are trying to convert, and use the format you want to convert it back

SimpleDateFormat from = new SimpleDateFormat("EEEE,yyyy");
SimpleDateFormat to = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");

String value = to.format(from.parse(dateString));

Now you can use something like dateutils Things like parsedate (string, string []) allow you to provide many different formats, but they are still limited to what you may know

A better solution is to store the date value directly in the database