How to convert a date in this format (Tue Jul 13 00:00:00 CEST 2010) to a Java Date (The string comes from an alfresco property)

Question

i'm managing a date that comes from an Alfresco Properties and is in the specified (Tue Jul 13 00:00:00 CEST 2010) and i need to convert it to a Java date...i've looked around and found millions of posts for various string to date conversion form and also this page and so i tried something like this:

private static final DateFormat alfrescoDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy");
Date dataRispostaDate = alfrescoDateFormat.parse(dataRisposta);

But it throws an exception.(The exception is (SSollevata un'eccezione durante la gestione della data: java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "Tue Jul 13 00:00:00 CEST 2011").

I post the complete code:

        try {
            QName currDocTypeQName = (QName) nodeService.getType(doc);
            log.error("QName:["+currDocTypeQName.toString()+"]");
            if (currDocTypeQName != null) {
                String codAtto = AlfrescoConstants.getCodAttoFromQName(currDocTypeQName.toString());
                log.error("codAtto:["+codAtto+"]");
                if (codAtto.equals(AlfrescoConstants.COD_IQT)){
                    List<ChildAssociationRef> risposteAssociate = nodeService.getChildAssocs(doc, AlfrescoConstants.QN_RISPOSTEASSOCIATE, RegexQNamePattern.MATCH_ALL);
                    for (ChildAssociationRef childAssocRef : risposteAssociate) {
                        // Vado a prendere il nodo
                        NodeRef risposta = childAssocRef.getChildRef();
                        String dataRisposta = (nodeService.getProperty(risposta, AlfrescoConstants.QN_DATA_RISPOSTA)).toString();
                        log.error("dataRisposta:["+dataRisposta+"]");
                        if (!dataRisposta.isEmpty()){
                            try {
                                Date dataDa = dmyFormat.parse(req.getParameter("dataDa"));
                                log.error("dataDa:["+dataDa.toString()+"]");
                                Date dataA = dmyFormat.parse(req.getParameter("dataA"));
                                log.error("dataA:["+dataA.toString()+"]");
                                Date dataRispostaDate = alfrescoDateFormat.parse(dataRisposta);
                                log.error("dataRispostaDate:["+dataRispostaDate.toString()+"]");

                                if (dataRispostaDate.after(dataDa) && dataRispostaDate.before(dataA)){
                                    results.add(doc);
                                    log.error("La data risposta  è compresa tra le date specificate");
                                }else{
                                    log.error("La data risposta non è compresa tra le date specificate");
                                }
                            } catch (ParseException e) {
                                log.error("Sollevata un'eccezione durante la gestione della data: " + e);
                                throw new RuntimeException("Formato data non valido");
                            }
                        }else{
                            log.error("La data risposta non è specificata");
                        }
                    }
                }else{
                    results.add(doc);
                }
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            log.error("Sollevata un'eccezione durante la gestione del codice atto nel webscript nicola: " + e);
        }

Anyone can help?

Answer 1

Basically your problem is that you are using a SimpleDateFormat(String pattern) constructor, where javadoc says:

Constructs a SimpleDateFormat using the given pattern and the default date format symbols for the default locale.

And if you try using this code:

DateFormat osLocalizedDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM EEEE");
System.out.println(osLocalizedDateFormat.format(new Date()))

you will notice that it prints you month and day of the week titles based on your locale.

Solution to your problem is to override default Date locale using SimpleDateFormat(String pattern, Locale locale) constructor:

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(
            "EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy", Locale.US);
dateFormat.parse("Tue Jul 13 00:00:00 CEST 2011");
System.out.println(dateFormat.format(new Date()));