Illegal pattern character T when parsing a date string to java util Date

Question

I have a date string and I want to parse it to normal date use the java Date API the following is my code   public static void main String   args        String date  2010-10-02T12 23 23Z       String pattern  yyyy-MM-ddThh mm ssZ       SimpleDateFormat sdf new SimpleDateFormat pattern       try           Date d sdf parse date           System out println d getYear           catch  ParseException e               TODO Auto-generated catch block         e printStackTrace              However I got an exception  java lang IllegalArgumentException  Illegal pattern character  T   So I wonder if I have to split the string and parse it manually   BTW  I have tried to add a single quote character on either side of the T      String pattern  yyyy-MM-dd T hh mm ssZ     It also does not work

User · Answer

tl dr  Use java time Instant class to parse text in standard ISO 8601 format  representing a moment in UTC    Instant parse   2010-10-02T12 23 23Z      ISO 8601  That format is defined by the ISO 8601 standard for date-time string formats   Both    java time framework built into Java 8 and later  Tutorial  Joda-Time library      use ISO 8601 formats by default for parsing and generating strings    You should generally avoid using the old java util Date  Calendar  amp  java text SimpleDateFormat classes as they are notoriously troublesome  confusing  and flawed  If required for interoperating  you can convert to and fro   java time  Built into Java 8 and later is the new java time framework  Inspired by Joda-Time  defined by JSR 310  and extended by the ThreeTen-Extra project   Instant instant   Instant parse   2010-10-02T12 23 23Z          Instant  is always in UTC    Convert to the old class   java util Date date   java util Date from  instant        Pass an  Instant  to the  from  method    Time Zone  If needed  you can assign a time zone   ZoneId zoneId   ZoneId of   America Montreal        Define a time zone rather than rely implicitly on JVM   s current default time zone  ZonedDateTime zdt   ZonedDateTime ofInstant  instant   zoneId        Assign a time zone adjustment from UTC    Convert   java util Date date   java util Date from  zdt toInstant          Extract an  Instant  from the  ZonedDateTime  to pass to the  from  method    Joda-Time  UPDATE  The Joda-Time project is now in maintenance mode  The team advises migration to the java time classes   Here is some example code in Joda-Time 2 8   org joda time DateTime dateTime Utc   new DateTime   2010-10-02T12 23 23Z    DateTimeZone UTC        Specifying a time zone to apply  rather than implicitly assigning the JVM   s current default    Convert to old class  Note that the assigned time zone is lost in conversion  as j u Date cannot be assigned a time zone   java util Date date   dateTime Utc toDate       The  toDate  method converts to old class    Time Zone  If needed  you can assign a time zone   DateTimeZone zone   DateTimeZone forID   America Montreal     DateTime dateTime Montreal   dateTime Utc withZone   zone            About java time  The java time framework is built into Java 8 and later  These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java util Date  Calendar   amp  SimpleDateFormat   The Joda-Time project  now in maintenance mode  advises migration to the java time classes   To learn more  see the Oracle Tutorial  And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations  Specification is JSR 310   You may exchange java time objects directly with your database  Use a JDBC driver compliant with JDBC 4 2 or later  No need for strings  no need for java sql   classes   Where to obtain the java time classes     Java SE 8  Java SE 9  and later   Built-in   Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation  Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes   Java SE 6 and Java SE 7   Much of the java time functionality is back-ported to Java 6  amp  7 in ThreeTen-Backport   Android   Later versions of Android bundle implementations of the java time classes  For earlier Android   lt 26   the ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport  mentioned above   See How to use ThreeTenABP          The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java time with additional classes  This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java time  You may find some useful classes here such as Interval  YearWeek  YearQuarter  and more

User · Answer

There are two answers above up-to-now and they are both long  and tl dr too short IMHO   so I write summary from my experience starting to use new java time library  applicable as noted in other answers to Java version 8    ISO 8601 sets standard way to write dates  YYYY-MM-DD so the format of date-time is only as below  could be 0  3  6 or 9 digits for milliseconds  and no formatting string necessary   import java time Instant  public static void main String   args        String date  2010-10-02T12 23 23Z       try           Instant myDate   Instant parse date         catch  ParseException e               TODO Auto-generated catch block         e printStackTrace              I did not need it  but as getting year is in code from the question  then  it is trickier  cannot be done from Instant directly  can be done via Calendar in way of questions Get integer value of the current year in Java and Converting java time to Calendar but IMHO as format is fixed substring is more simple to use     myDate toString   substring 0 4

User · Answer

Update for Java 8 and higher  You can now simply do Instant parse  2015-04-28T14 23 38 521Z   and get the correct thing now  especially since you should be using Instant instead of the broken java util Date with the most recent versions of Java    You should be using DateTimeFormatter instead of SimpleDateFormatter as well   Original Answer      The explanation below is still valid as as what the format represents    But it was written before Java 8 was ubiquitous so it uses the old   classes that you should not be using if you are using Java 8 or   higher    This works with the input with the trailing Z as demonstrated      In the pattern the T is escaped with   on either side         The pattern for the Z at the end is actually XXX as documented   in the JavaDoc for SimpleDateFormat  it is just not very clear   on actually how to use it since Z is the marker for the old   TimeZone information as well    Q2597083 java  import java text SimpleDateFormat  import java util Calendar  import java util Date  import java util GregorianCalendar  import java util TimeZone   public class Q2597083                  All Dates are normalized to UTC  it is up the client code to convert to the appropriate TimeZone              public static final TimeZone UTC                   see  lt a href  http   en wikipedia org wiki ISO 8601 Combined date and time representations  gt Combined Date and Time Representations lt  a gt              public static final String ISO 8601 24H FULL FORMAT    yyyy-MM-dd T HH mm ss SSSXXX                   0001-01-01T00 00 00 000Z             public static final Date BEGINNING OF TIME                  292278994-08-17T07 12 55 807Z             public static final Date END OF TIME       static               UTC   TimeZone getTimeZone  UTC            TimeZone setDefault UTC           final Calendar c   new GregorianCalendar UTC           c set 1  0  1  0  0  0           c set Calendar MILLISECOND  0           BEGINNING OF TIME   c getTime            c setTime new Date Long MAX VALUE            END OF TIME   c getTime               public static void main String   args  throws Exception                final SimpleDateFormat sdf   new SimpleDateFormat ISO 8601 24H FULL FORMAT           sdf setTimeZone UTC           System out println  sdf format BEGINNING OF TIME        sdf format BEGINNING OF TIME            System out println  sdf format END OF TIME        sdf format END OF TIME            System out println  sdf format new Date          sdf format new Date              System out println  sdf parse   2015-04-28T14 23 38 521Z          sdf parse  2015-04-28T14 23 38 521Z             System out println  sdf parse   0001-01-01T00 00 00 000Z          sdf parse  0001-01-01T00 00 00 000Z             System out println  sdf parse   292278994-08-17T07 12 55 807Z          sdf parse  292278994-08-17T07 12 55 807Z               Produces the following output   sdf format BEGINNING OF TIME    0001-01-01T00 00 00 000Z sdf format END OF TIME    292278994-08-17T07 12 55 807Z sdf format new Date      2015-04-28T14 38 25 956Z sdf parse  2015-04-28T14 23 38 521Z     Tue Apr 28 14 23 38 UTC 2015 sdf parse  0001-01-01T00 00 00 000Z     Sat Jan 01 00 00 00 UTC 1 sdf parse  292278994-08-17T07 12 55 807Z     Sun Aug 17 07 12 55 UTC 292278994

[java] Illegal pattern character 'T' when parsing a date string to java.util.Date

tl;dr

ISO 8601

java.time

Joda-Time

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