Java 8 Date Time Formatting
Overview Patterns Java 8 Date Time Examples
Overview
Java 8 no longer uses the SimpleDateFormat Class that was used in Java SE 7. Java SE 8 implements a class called DateTimeFormatter that allows you to print and parse date time objects. If you are looking to format datetime in Android or Kotlin, please check out our page dedicated to Kotlin Date Time Formatting. Further documentation for the DateTimeFormatter Java SE 8 class can be found in the link below.
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/time/format/DateTimeFormatter.html
Patterns
The letters A through Z bother uppercase and lowercase are reserved letters for patterns. The pattern letters are defined as follows:
| Symbol | Meaning | Presentation | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
G |
era | text | AD; Anno Domini; A |
u |
year | year | 2004; 04 |
y |
year-of-era | year | 2004; 04 |
D |
day-of-year | number | 189 |
M/L |
month-of-year | number/text | 7; 07; Jul; July; J |
d |
day-of-month | number | 10 |
Q/q |
quarter-of-year | number/text | 3; 03; Q3; 3rd quarter |
Y |
week-based-year | year | 1996; 96 |
w |
week-of-week-based-year | number | 27 |
W |
week-of-month | number | 4 |
E |
day-of-week | text | Tue; Tuesday; T |
e/c |
localized day-of-week | number/text | 2; 02; Tue; Tuesday; T |
F |
week-of-month | number | 3 |
a |
am-pm-of-day | text | PM |
h |
clock-hour-of-am-pm (1-12) | number | 12 |
K |
hour-of-am-pm (0-11) | number | 0 |
k |
clock-hour-of-am-pm (1-24) | number | 0 |
H |
hour-of-day (0-23) | number | 0 |
m |
minute-of-hour | number | 30 |
s |
second-of-minute | number | 55 |
S |
fraction-of-second | fraction | 978 |
A |
milli-of-day | number | 1234 |
n |
nano-of-second | number | 987654321 |
N |
nano-of-day | number | 1234000000 |
V |
time-zone ID | zone-id | America/Los_Angeles; Z; -08:30 |
z |
time-zone name | zone-name | Pacific Standard Time; PST |
O |
localized zone-offset | offset-O | GMT+8; GMT+08:00; UTC-08:00; |
X |
zone-offset ‘Z’ for zero | offset-X | Z; -08; -0830; -08:30; -083015; -08:30:15; |
x |
zone-offset | offset-x | +0000; -08; -0830; -08:30; -083015; -08:30:15; |
Z |
zone-offset | offset-Z | +0000; -0800; -08:00; |
p |
pad next | pad modifier | 1 |
' |
escape for text | delimiter | |
'' |
single quote | literal | ' |
[ |
optional section start | ||
] |
optional section end | ||
# |
reserved for future use | ||
{ |
reserved for future use | ||
} |
reserved for future use |
Java 8 Date Time Examples
The following code example will result in a date with the pattern of “2018 01 01”:
LocalDate nowDate = LocalDate.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy MM dd");
String dateTxt = nowDate.format(formatter);
LocalDate parsedDate = LocalDate.parse(dateTxt, formatter);