java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date

Question

I am getting a parsing exception while I am trying the following code:

    String date="Sat Jun 01 12:53:10 IST 2013";
    SimpleDateFormat sdf=new SimpleDateFormat("MMM d, yyyy HH:mm:ss");
    Date currentdate;
    currentdate=sdf.parse(date);
    System.out.println(currentdate);

Exception:

Exception in thread "main" java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "Sat Jun 01 12:53:10 IST 2013" at com.ibm.icu.text.DateFormat.parse(DateFormat.java:510)

Input: Sat Jun 01 12:53:10 IST 2013

Expected output: Jun 01,2013 12:53:10

How to solve this?

Answer 1

Your pattern does not correspond to the input string at all... It is not surprising that it does not work. This would probably work better:

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("EE MMM dd HH:mm:ss z yyyy",
                                            Locale.ENGLISH);

Then to print with your required format you need a second SimpleDateFormat:

Date parsedDate = sdf.parse(date);
SimpleDateFormat print = new SimpleDateFormat("MMM d, yyyy HH:mm:ss");
System.out.println(print.format(parsedDate));

Notes:

• you should include the locale as if your locale is not English, the day name might not be recognised
• IST is ambiguous and can lead to problems so you should use the proper time zone name if possible in your input.