Finding day of a date in Java

Question

I want to find out the day of the date in Java for a date like 27-04-2011.

I tried to use this, but it doesn't work:

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
int val = cal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK);

It gives the integer value, not the String output I want. I am not getting the correct value I want. For example it is giving me value 4 for the date 28-02-2011 where it should be 2 because Sunday is the first week day.

Answer 1

Yes, you've asked it for the day of the week - and February 28th was a Monday, day 2. Note that in the code you've given, you're not actually setting the date anywhere - it's just using the current date, which is a Wednesday, which is why you're getting 4. If you could show how you're trying to set the calendar to a different date (e.g. 28th of February) we can work out why that's not working for you.

If you want it formatted as text, you can use SimpleDateFormat and the "E" specifier. For example (untested):

SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE");
String text = formatter.format(cal.getTime());

Personally I would avoid using Calendar altogether though - use Joda Time, which is a far superior date and time API.