SimpleDateFormat - Unparseable date

Question

I try to convert String to Date.

Here is my code:

    SimpleDateFormat format =  new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy");
    Date date = format.parse("Sun Apr 08 16:37:00 CEST 2012");

I get exception:

04-08 13:51:36.536: W/System.err(8005): java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "Sun Apr 08 16:37:00 CEST 2012".

Format seems to be ok. Am I missing something?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Either the code you posted is not your actual code, or you have a locale issue. It works fine on Sun Oracle Java 1.6 with a US locale.

Change your code to:

SimpleDateFormat format =  
    new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy", Locale.US);

Answer 2

SimpleDateFormat is Locale specific. At least the pattern E and M are locale specific, because for example "Sun" or "Sunday" will not match for Locale.GERMAN or Locale.FRENCH etc. You better specify the used Locale

SimpleDateFormat format =  new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy", Locale.US);

or use a format, which is not locale specific.