How do you format the day of the month to say "11th", "21st" or "23rd" (ordinal indicator)?

Question

// https://github.com/google/guava
import static com.google.common.base.Preconditions.*;

String getDayOfMonthSuffix(final int n) {
    checkArgument(n >= 1 && n <= 31, "illegal day of month: " + n);
    if (n >= 11 && n <= 13) {
        return "th";
    }
    switch (n % 10) {
        case 1:  return "st";
        case 2:  return "nd";
        case 3:  return "rd";
        default: return "th";
    }
}

The table from @kaliatech is nice, but since the same information is repeated, it opens the chance for a bug. Such a bug actually exists in the table for 7tn, 17tn, and 27tn (this bug might get fixed as time goes on because of the fluid nature of StackOverflow, so check the version history on the answer to see the error).

There is nothing in JDK to do this.

  static String[] suffixes =
  //    0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9
     { "th", "st", "nd", "rd", "th", "th", "th", "th", "th", "th",
  //    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17    18    19
       "th", "th", "th", "th", "th", "th", "th", "th", "th", "th",
  //    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29
       "th", "st", "nd", "rd", "th", "th", "th", "th", "th", "th",
  //    30    31
       "th", "st" };

 Date date = new Date();
 SimpleDateFormat formatDayOfMonth  = new SimpleDateFormat("d");
 int day = Integer.parseInt(formatDateOfMonth.format(date));
 String dayStr = day + suffixes[day];

Or using Calendar:

 Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
 c.setTime(date);
 int day = c.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
 String dayStr = day + suffixes[day];

Per comments by @thorbjørn-ravn-andersen, a table like this can be helpful when localizing:

  static String[] suffixes =
     {  "0th",  "1st",  "2nd",  "3rd",  "4th",  "5th",  "6th",  "7th",  "8th",  "9th",
       "10th", "11th", "12th", "13th", "14th", "15th", "16th", "17th", "18th", "19th",
       "20th", "21st", "22nd", "23rd", "24th", "25th", "26th", "27th", "28th", "29th",
       "30th", "31st" };

private String getCurrentDateInSpecificFormat(Calendar currentCalDate) {
    String dayNumberSuffix = getDayNumberSuffix(currentCalDate.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH));
    DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(" d'" + dayNumberSuffix + "' MMMM yyyy");
    return dateFormat.format(currentCalDate.getTime());
}

private String getDayNumberSuffix(int day) {
    if (day >= 11 && day <= 13) {
        return "th";
    }
    switch (day % 10) {
    case 1:
        return "st";
    case 2:
        return "nd";
    case 3:
        return "rd";
    default:
        return "th";
    }
}

I should like to contribute the modern answer. The SimpleDateFormat class was OK to use when the question was asked 8 years ago, but you should avoid it now as it is not only long outdated, but also notoriously troublesome. Use java.time instead.

Edit

DateTimeFormatterBuilder.appendText(TemporalField, Map<Long, String>) is great for this purpose. Using it we build a formatter that does the work for us:

    Map<Long, String> ordinalNumbers = new HashMap<>(42);
    ordinalNumbers.put(1L, "1st");
    ordinalNumbers.put(2L, "2nd");
    ordinalNumbers.put(3L, "3rd");
    ordinalNumbers.put(21L, "21st");
    ordinalNumbers.put(22L, "22nd");
    ordinalNumbers.put(23L, "23rd");
    ordinalNumbers.put(31L, "31st");
    for (long d = 1; d <= 31; d++) {
        ordinalNumbers.putIfAbsent(d, "" + d + "th");
    }

    DateTimeFormatter dayOfMonthFormatter = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
            .appendText(ChronoField.DAY_OF_MONTH, ordinalNumbers)
            .appendPattern(" MMMM")
            .toFormatter();

    LocalDate date = LocalDate.of(2018, Month.AUGUST, 30);
    for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++) {
        System.out.println(date.format(dayOfMonthFormatter));
        date = date.plusDays(1);
    }

The output from this snippet is:

30th August
31st August
1st September
2nd September
3rd September
4th September

Old answer

This code is shorter, but IMHO not so elegant.

    // ordinal indicators by numbers (1-based, cell 0 is wasted)
    String[] ordinalIndicators = new String[31 + 1];
    Arrays.fill(ordinalIndicators, 1, ordinalIndicators.length, "th");
    ordinalIndicators[1] = ordinalIndicators[21] = ordinalIndicators[31] = "st";
    ordinalIndicators[2] = ordinalIndicators[22] = "nd";
    ordinalIndicators[3] = ordinalIndicators[23] = "rd";

    DateTimeFormatter dayOfMonthFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("d");

    LocalDate today = LocalDate.now(ZoneId.of("America/Menominee")).plusWeeks(1);
    System.out.println(today.format(dayOfMonthFormatter) 
                        + ordinalIndicators[today.getDayOfMonth()]);

Running this snippet just now I got

23rd

One of the many features of java.time is that it’s straightforward and reliable to get the day of month as an int, which is obviously needed for picking the right suffix from the table.

I recommend you write a unit test too.

PS A similar formatter can also be used for parsing a date string containing ordinal numbers like 1st, 2nd, etc. That was done in this question: Java - Parse date with optional seconds.

Link: Oracle tutorial: Date Time explaining how to use java.time.

Question is little old. As this question is very noisy so posting what I did solved with static method as a util. Just copy, paste and use it!

 public static String getFormattedDate(Date date){
            Calendar cal=Calendar.getInstance();
            cal.setTime(date);
            //2nd of march 2015
            int day=cal.get(Calendar.DATE);

            if(!((day>10) && (day<19)))
            switch (day % 10) {
            case 1:  
                return new SimpleDateFormat("d'st' 'of' MMMM yyyy").format(date);
            case 2:  
                return new SimpleDateFormat("d'nd' 'of' MMMM yyyy").format(date);
            case 3:  
                return new SimpleDateFormat("d'rd' 'of' MMMM yyyy").format(date);
            default: 
                return new SimpleDateFormat("d'th' 'of' MMMM yyyy").format(date);
        }
        return new SimpleDateFormat("d'th' 'of' MMMM yyyy").format(date);
    }

For testing purose

Example: calling it from main method!

Date date = new Date();
        Calendar cal=Calendar.getInstance();
        cal.setTime(date);
        for(int i=0;i<32;i++){
          System.out.println(getFormattedDate(cal.getTime()));
          cal.set(Calendar.DATE,(cal.getTime().getDate()+1));
        }

Output:

22nd of February 2018
23rd of February 2018
24th of February 2018
25th of February 2018
26th of February 2018
27th of February 2018
28th of February 2018
1st of March 2018
2nd of March 2018
3rd of March 2018
4th of March 2018
5th of March 2018
6th of March 2018
7th of March 2018
8th of March 2018
9th of March 2018
10th of March 2018
11th of March 2018
12th of March 2018
13th of March 2018
14th of March 2018
15th of March 2018
16th of March 2018
17th of March 2018
18th of March 2018
19th of March 2018
20th of March 2018
21st of March 2018
22nd of March 2018
23rd of March 2018
24th of March 2018
25th of March 2018

String ordinal(int num)
{
    String[] suffix = {"th", "st", "nd", "rd", "th", "th", "th", "th", "th", "th"};
    int m = num % 100;
    return String.valueOf(num) + suffix[(m > 3 && m < 21) ? 0 : (m % 10)];
}