Clojure - parse string to date

Question

I'm trying to parse a unformatted string which contains a date (e.g. today = "08082013") to the format "08.08.2013".

This works: (.parse (java.text.SimpleDateFormat. "ddMMyyyy") today) => <Date Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 CET 1950>

But when I do (.parse (java.text.SimpleDateFormat. "dd.MM.yyyy") today) I get the error "Unparseable date: "08082013"

Why? How can I get my desired date format?

Answer 1

To get from string to date, use parse.

To get from date to string, use format.

Both use a formatter to describe the transition.

=>(.format
    (java.text.SimpleDateFormat. "dd.MM.yyyy")
    (.parse
      (java.text.SimpleDateFormat. "ddMMyyyy")
      "08082013"))

"08.08.2013"

Answer 2

If you are playing around with date and time I recommend checking out this Clojure lib,

https://github.com/clj-time/clj-time

It is kind of the time lib most Clojure programmers use, and is based on the java lib joda time, that by many is agreed to be better than the Java build in one.