Android Location time into date [closed]

Question

I'm using the Location class and the getTime() method to get the current time in Android. Then I'm sending that Long number to some other device. That device receives the Long number and should display the data in a message box, but I don't know how to convert it into DD:MM:YY and time of the day (or anything readable by a human, actually). How do I do this? I can't use the current format, it has to be something that the average user can read.

Thank you!

Answer 1

Assuming you don't want to use Joda Time (might be a bit big for an Android app) you should probably use a DateFormat such as SimpleDateFormat:

// See notes below
DateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
Date date = new Date(location.getTime());
String formatted = format.format(date);

There are cultural issues you should consider though:

• You may wish to explicitly set the locale, if you believe the default may not suit you
• Rather than hard-code the format, you may want to use DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance()
• You should consider which time zone you're interested in; presumably the user's time zone, which should be the default for any DateFormat you create, but perhaps something else...