Android - Format Timestamp in ListView with Cursor Adapter

Question

I am using a SimpleCursorAdapter to populate an Android ListView, and was wondering how I should go about getting all of the timestamps I get from a database, each in "DATE_DATE" into human readable dates, maybe using SimpleDateFormat?

Cursor programDateCursor = mDbAdapter.loadProgramDates();

startManagingCursor(programDateCursor);

String[] from = new String[]{ "DATE_DATE" };

int[] to = new int[]{ R.id.text1 };

SimpleCursorAdapter programDates = 
             new SimpleCursorAdapter(this, R.layout.program_date,
                                      programDateCursor, from, to);

setListAdapter(programDates);

I've not done much work with Java, so is there a better way / any way to do this? Other than storing the preformatted dates in the database before hand, that is?

Answer 1

You're going to have to create a custom CursorAdapter to be able to format your timestamps.

public class MyAdapter extends CursorAdapter {
    private final LayoutInflater mInflater;

    public MyAdapter(Context context, Cursor cursor) {
        super(context, cursor, false);
        mInflater = LayoutInflater.from(context);
    }

    @Override
    public View newView(Context context, Cursor cursor, ViewGroup parent) {
         return mInflater.inflate(R.layout.program_date, parent, false);
    }

    @Override
    public void bindView(View view, Context context, Cursor cursor) {
        long time = cursor.getLong(cursor.getColumnIndex("DATE_DATE")) * 1000L;

        Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
        cal.setTimeInMillis(time);

        String format = "M/dd h:mm a";
        SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(format);
        String dateString = sdf.format(cal.getTime());

        ((TextView) view.findViewById(R.id.text1)).setText(dateString);
    }
}

The list to change the String format to your liking is here.

You'd then use this adapter with

Cursor programDateCursor = mDbAdapter.loadProgramDates();
startManagingCursor(programDateCursor);

setListAdapter(new MyAdapter(this, programDateCursor));