Convert UTC date from scientific notation to Java.util.Date

Question

I'm trying to convert the created_utc date from Reddit's json to a Date object, but I keep getting an "Unparceable" error. An example of their dates is: created_utc": 1.43701862E9, which I'm told is a unix timestamp.

From my research this code should convert it:

String date = "1.43701862E9";
java.util.Date time = new java.util.Date((long)date*1000);

but obviously I'm getting an error on multiplying the date by 1000.

This is the code I normally use to convert string dates:

    String date = "1.43701862E9";
    Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getDefault());
    SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss z");
    format.parse(date);

Answer 1

This should work for you:

public static void main(String[] args) {

    String date = "1.43701862E9";
    java.util.Date time = new java.util.Date(Double.valueOf(date).longValue()*1000);

    System.out.println(time);
}

Output:

Wed Jul 15 23:50:20 EDT 2015

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Since you're using scientific notation you can't parse the String using the Long class: Long.parseLong(String s) (Nor can you simply cast a String, as you're trying). Instead, I used the Double.valueOf() method and preserve the Long using .longValue()