Name
DateFormat
Synopsis
This class formats and parses
dates and times in a locale-specific
way. As an abstract class, it cannot be instantiated directly, but it
provides a number of static methods that return instances of a
concrete subclass you can use to format dates in a variety of ways.
The getDateInstance( ) methods return a
DateFormat object suitable for formatting dates in
either the default locale or a specified locale. A formatting style
may also optionally be specified; the constants
FULL, LONG,
MEDIUM, SHORT, and
DEFAULT specify this style. Similarly, the
getTimeInstance( ) methods return a
DateFormat object that formats and parses times,
and the getDateTimeInstance( ) methods return a
DateFormat object that formats both dates and
times. These methods also optionally take a format style constant and
a Locale. Finally, getInstance(
) returns a default DateFormat object
that formats both dates and times in the SHORT
format.
Once you have created a
DateFormat object, you can use the
setCalendar( ) and setTimeZone(
) methods if you want to format the date using a calendar
or time zone other than the default. The various format(
) methods convert java.util.Date objects
to strings using whatever format is encapsulated in the
DateFormat object. The parse( )
and parseObject( ) methods perform the reverse
operation; they parse a string formatted according to the rules of
the DateFormat object and convert it into to a
Date object. The DEFAULT,
FULL, MEDIUM,
LONG, and SHORT constants ...
Get Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
