SimpleDateFormat

open class SimpleDateFormat : DateFormat

is a concrete class for formatting and parsing dates in a locale-sensitive manner. It allows for formatting (date → text), parsing (text → date), and normalization.

SimpleDateFormat allows you to start by choosing any user-defined patterns for date-time formatting. However, you are encouraged to create a date-time formatter with either getTimeInstance, getDateInstance, or getDateTimeInstance in DateFormat. Each of these class methods can return a date/time formatter initialized with a default format pattern. You may modify the format pattern using the applyPattern methods as desired. For more information on using these methods, see DateFormat.

Date and Time Patterns

Date and time formats are specified by date and time pattern strings. Within date and time pattern strings, unquoted letters from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z' are interpreted as pattern letters representing the components of a date or time string. Text can be quoted using single quotes (') to avoid interpretation. "''" represents a single quote. All other characters are not interpreted; they're simply copied into the output string during formatting or matched against the input string during parsing.

The following pattern letters are defined (all other characters from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z' are reserved):

• Text: For formatting, if the number of pattern letters is 4 or more, the full form is used; otherwise a short or abbreviated form is used if available. For parsing, both forms are accepted, independent of the number of pattern letters.
• Number: For formatting, the number of pattern letters is the minimum number of digits, and shorter numbers are zero-padded to this amount. For parsing, the number of pattern letters is ignored unless it's needed to separate two adjacent fields.
• Year: If the formatter's Calendar is the Gregorian calendar, the following rules are applied.
  • For formatting, if the number of pattern letters is 2, the year is truncated to 2 digits; otherwise it is interpreted as a number.
  • For parsing, if the number of pattern letters is more than 2, the year is interpreted literally, regardless of the number of digits. So using the pattern "MM/dd/yyyy", "01/11/12" parses to Jan 11, 12 A.D.
  • For parsing with the abbreviated year pattern ("y" or "yy"), SimpleDateFormat must interpret the abbreviated year relative to some century. It does this by adjusting dates to be within 80 years before and 20 years after the time the SimpleDateFormat instance is created. For example, using a pattern of "MM/dd/yy" and a SimpleDateFormat instance created on Jan 1, 1997, the string "01/11/12" would be interpreted as Jan 11, 2012 while the string "05/04/64" would be interpreted as May 4, 1964. During parsing, only strings consisting of exactly two digits, as defined by Character#isDigit(char), will be parsed into the default century. Any other numeric string, such as a one digit string, a three or more digit string, or a two digit string that isn't all digits (for example, "-1"), is interpreted literally. So "01/02/3" or "01/02/003" are parsed, using the same pattern, as Jan 2, 3 AD. Likewise, "01/02/-3" is parsed as Jan 2, 4 BC.
  Otherwise, calendar system specific forms are applied. For both formatting and parsing, if the number of pattern letters is 4 or more, a calendar specific long form is used. Otherwise, a calendar specific short or abbreviated form is used.
  If week year 'Y' is specified and the calendar doesn't support any week years, the calendar year ('y') is used instead. The support of week years can be tested with a call to getCalendar(). isWeekDateSupported().
• Month: If the number of pattern letters is 3 or more, the month is interpreted as text; otherwise, it is interpreted as a number.
  • Letter M produces context-sensitive month names, such as the embedded form of names. Letter M is context-sensitive in the sense that when it is used in the standalone pattern, for example, "MMMM", it gives the standalone form of a month name and when it is used in the pattern containing other field(s), for example, "d MMMM", it gives the format form of a month name. For example, January in the Catalan language is "de gener" in the format form while it is "gener" in the standalone form. In this case, "MMMM" will produce "gener" and the month part of the "d MMMM" will produce "de gener". If a DateFormatSymbols has been set explicitly with constructor SimpleDateFormat(java.lang.String,java.text.DateFormatSymbols) or method setDateFormatSymbols(java.text.DateFormatSymbols), the month names given by the DateFormatSymbols are used.
  • Letter L produces the standalone form of month names.
  
  
• General time zone: Time zones are interpreted as text if they have names. For time zones representing a GMT offset value, the following syntax is used:

  <a id="GMTOffsetTimeZone"><i>GMTOffsetTimeZone:</i></a><code>GMT</code><i>Sign</i><i>Hours</i><code>:</code><i>Minutes</i><i>Sign:</i>one of
                <code>+ -</code><i>Hours:</i><i>Digit</i><i>Digit</i><i>Digit</i><i>Minutes:</i><i>Digit</i><i>Digit</i><i>Digit:</i>one of
                <code>0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9</code>

  Hours must be between 0 and 23, and Minutes must be between 00 and 59. The format is locale independent and digits must be taken from the Basic Latin block of the Unicode standard.

  For parsing, RFC 822 time zones are also accepted.

• RFC 822 time zone: For formatting, the RFC 822 4-digit time zone format is used:

  <i>RFC822TimeZone:</i><i>Sign</i><i>TwoDigitHours</i><i>Minutes</i><i>TwoDigitHours:</i><i>Digit Digit</i>

  TwoDigitHours must be between 00 and 23. Other definitions are as for general time zones.

  For parsing, general time zones are also accepted.

• ISO 8601 Time zone: The number of pattern letters designates the format for both formatting and parsing as follows:

  <i>ISO8601TimeZone:</i><i>OneLetterISO8601TimeZone</i><i>TwoLetterISO8601TimeZone</i><i>ThreeLetterISO8601TimeZone</i><i>OneLetterISO8601TimeZone:</i><i>Sign</i><i>TwoDigitHours</i><code>Z</code><i>TwoLetterISO8601TimeZone:</i><i>Sign</i><i>TwoDigitHours</i><i>Minutes</i><code>Z</code><i>ThreeLetterISO8601TimeZone:</i><i>Sign</i><i>TwoDigitHours</i><code>:</code><i>Minutes</i><code>Z</code>

  Other definitions are as for general time zones or RFC 822 time zones.

  For formatting, if the offset value from GMT is 0, "Z" is produced. If the number of pattern letters is 1, any fraction of an hour is ignored. For example, if the pattern is "X" and the time zone is "GMT+05:30", "+05" is produced.

  For parsing, the letter "Z" is parsed as the UTC time zone designator (therefore "09:30Z" is parsed as "09:30 UTC". General time zones are not accepted.

  If the number of "X" pattern letters is 4 or more (e.g. XXXX), IllegalArgumentException is thrown when constructing a SimpleDateFormat or applying a.

Examples

Synchronization

Date formats are not synchronized. It is recommended to create separate format instances for each thread. If multiple threads access a format concurrently, it must be synchronized externally.

Summary

<code>getCalendar().getTimeZone()
  </code>

<code>getCalendar().isLenient()
  </code>

<code>getCalendar().setLenient(lenient)
  </code>

<code>getCalendar().setTimeZone(zone)
  </code>

Public constructors

SimpleDateFormat()

SimpleDateFormat(pattern: String!)

SimpleDateFormat(
    pattern: String!, 
    locale: Locale!)

SimpleDateFormat(
    pattern: String!, 
    formatSymbols: DateFormatSymbols!)

Public methods

open fun applyLocalizedPattern(pattern: String!): Unit

open fun applyPattern(pattern: String!): Unit

open fun clone(): Any

open fun equals(other: Any?): Boolean

open fun format(
    date: Date, 
    toAppendTo: StringBuffer, 
    pos: FieldPosition
): StringBuffer

open fun formatToCharacterIterator(obj: Any!): AttributedCharacterIterator!

open fun get2DigitYearStart(): Date!

open fun getDateFormatSymbols(): DateFormatSymbols!

open fun hashCode(): Int

open fun parse(
    text: String, 
    pos: ParsePosition
): Date?

open fun set2DigitYearStart(startDate: Date!): Unit

open fun setDateFormatSymbols(newFormatSymbols: DateFormatSymbols!): Unit

open fun toLocalizedPattern(): String!

open fun toPattern(): String!