How to Convert Date to String in Java

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  4. How to Convert Date to String in Java
Mohammad Irfan Feb 02, 2024
Java Java String Java DateTime
  1. Convert Date to String Using SimpleDateFormat in Java
  2. Convert Date to String Using DateFormatUtils Class in Java
  3. Convert Date to String Using DateTimeFormatter in Java
  4. Convert Date to String With the Time Zone in Java
  5. Convert Date to String With String Class in Java
How to Convert Date to String in Java

This tutorial introduces how to convert java.util.Date to String in Java and lists some example codes to understand it.

Java has several classes and methods that help convert Date to String like using SimpleDateFormat, DateFormatUtils, and DateTimeFormatter class.

Convert Date to String Using SimpleDateFormat in Java

Here, We use format() method of SimpleDateFormat class to get String from the util.Date object in Java.

import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;

public class SimpleTesting {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
    DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
    Date date = new Date();
    String dateToStr = dateFormat.format(date);
    System.out.println("Date is " + dateToStr);
  }
}

Output:

Date is 21/09/2020 08:48:01

Convert Date to String Using DateFormatUtils Class in Java

If you are using the Apache library then use format() method of DateFormateUtils class. It returns a string after converting java.util.Date to string in Java.

import java.text.ParseException;
import java.util.Date;
import org.apache.commons.lang3.time.DateFormatUtils;

public class SimpleTesting {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
    Date date = new Date();
    String dateToStr = DateFormatUtils.format(date, "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:SS");
    System.out.println("Date is " + dateToStr);
  }
}

Output:

Date is 2020-09-21 08:51:203

Convert Date to String Using DateTimeFormatter in Java

Here, we use the format() method that takes the ofPattern() method as an argument and returns a string representation of a date. See the example below.

import java.text.ParseException;
import java.time.ZoneOffset;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.util.Date;

public class SimpleTesting {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
    Date date = new Date();
    String dateToStr =
        date.toInstant().atOffset(ZoneOffset.UTC).format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd-MM-yyyy"));
    System.out.println("Date is " + dateToStr);
  }
}

Output:

Date is 21-09-2020

Convert Date to String With the Time Zone in Java

Here, we use format() method of the DateTimeFormatter class to get string after conversion from java.util.date. We get time zone along with date because we specified the date-time format in the ofPattern() method.

import java.text.ParseException;
import java.time.ZoneId;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.util.Date;

public class SimpleTesting {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
    Date date = new Date();
    DateTimeFormatter format =
        DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss:SSS Z").withZone(ZoneId.systemDefault());
    String dateToStr = format.format(date.toInstant());
    System.out.println("Date is " + dateToStr);
  }
}

Output:

Date is 2020-09-21 09:10:23:991 +0530

Convert Date to String With String Class in Java

This is one of the simplest solutions to get a String of java.util.date object. Here, we use the format() method of the String class that formats the date based on the specified format. See the example below.

import java.text.ParseException;
import java.util.Date;

public class SimpleTesting {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
    Date date = new Date();
    String dateToStr = String.format("%1$tY-%1$tm-%1$td", date);
    System.out.println("Date is " + dateToStr);
  }
}

Output:

Date is 2020-09-21

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