Convert String to Date in Java

Hassan Saeed Dec 10, 2020 Oct 05, 2020

Java Java String

This tutorial discusses methods to convert a string to a date in Java.

Use `SimpleDateFormat` to Convert a String to `date` in Java

The simplest way to convert a string to date in Java is by using the SimpleDateFormat class. First, we need to define the date format our string represents, such as yyyy-MM-dd. The below example illustrates this:

import java.util.*;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;


public class MyClass {
    public static void main(String args[]) throws ParseException {
        SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
        String strDate = "2000-05-01";
        Date date = new Date(sdf.parse(strDate).getTime());
        System.out.println(date);
    }
}

Output:

Mon May 01 00:00:00 GMT 2000

Let us try this with a few more different date formats. The below example converts the string - "January 2, 2010" to a date in Java.

import java.util.*;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;


public class MyClass {
    public static void main(String args[]) throws ParseException {
        SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM d, yyyy");
        String strDate = "January 2, 2010";
        Date date = new Date(sdf.parse(strDate).getTime());
        System.out.println(date);
    }
}

Output:

Sat Jan 02 00:00:00 GMT 2010

Similarly, you can define use any date format and convert the string representation to date in Java.

Use SimpleDateFormat to Convert a String to date in Java

Related Article - Java String

Use `SimpleDateFormat` to Convert a String to `date` in Java