Java Date formatter

Question

The (real life) problem

Following my question on SO, I found out that printing a Java Date() in a custom format is quite tedious:

final Date date = new Date();
final String ISO_FORMAT = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS zzz";
final SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(ISO_FORMAT);
final TimeZone utc = TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC");
sdf.setTimeZone(utc);
System.out.println(sdf.format(date));

I was looking for a one-liner without object initialization:

System.out.println(magic(date, "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS zzz", "UTC"));

My Solution

PrettyDate class, which formats Date() objects using TimeZones and Formats given as strings, sans any external object creation. There are some convenience methods for popular timezone\format combinations.

Alternatives to Consider (please comment on these, too!)

• Extending Date() with better toString()
• Using non-static methods: Initializing PrettyDate with a Format and a TimeZone, and feeding it with Date objects to get a string representation

Usage

// The problem - not UTC
Date.toString()                      
"Tue Jul 03 14:54:24 IDT 2012"

// ISO format, now
PrettyDate.now()        
"2012-07-03T11:54:24.256 UTC"

// ISO format, specific date
PrettyDate.toString(new Date())         
"2012-07-03T11:54:24.256 UTC"

// Legacy format, specific date
PrettyDate.toLegacyString(new Date())   
"Tue Jul 03 11:54:24 UTC 2012"

// ISO, specific date and time zone
PrettyDate.toString(moonLandingDate, "yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss zzz", "CST") 
"1969-08-20 03:17:40 CDT"

// Specific format and date
PrettyDate.toString(moonLandingDate, "yyyy-MM-dd")
"1969-08-20"

// ISO, specific date
PrettyDate.toString(moonLandingDate)
"1969-08-20T20:17:40.234 UTC"

// Legacy, specific date
PrettyDate.toLegacyString(moonLandingDate)
"Wed Aug 20 08:17:40 UTC 1969"

Code

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.TimeZone;

/**
 * Formats dates to sortable UTC strings in compliance with ISO-8601.
 * 
 * @author Adam Matan <adam@matan.name>
 * @see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11294307/convert-java-date-to-utc-string/11294308
 */
public class PrettyDate {
    public static String ISO_FORMAT = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS zzz";
    public static String LEGACY_FORMAT = "EEE MMM dd hh:mm:ss zzz yyyy";
    private static final TimeZone utc = TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC");
    private static final SimpleDateFormat legacyFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat(LEGACY_FORMAT);
    private static final SimpleDateFormat isoFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat(ISO_FORMAT);
    static {
        legacyFormatter.setTimeZone(utc);
        isoFormatter.setTimeZone(utc);
    }

    /**
     * Formats the current time in a sortable ISO-8601 UTC format.
     * 
     * @return Current time in ISO-8601 format, e.g. :
     *         "2012-07-03T07:59:09.206 UTC"
     */
    public static String now() {
        return PrettyDate.toString(new Date());
    }

    /**
     * Formats a given date in a sortable ISO-8601 UTC format.
     * 
     * <pre>
     * <code>
     * final Calendar moonLandingCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
     * moonLandingCalendar.set(1969, 7, 20, 20, 18, 0);
     * final Date moonLandingDate = moonLandingCalendar.getTime();
     * System.out.println("UTCDate.toString moon:       " + PrettyDate.toString(moonLandingDate));
     * >>> UTCDate.toString moon:       1969-08-20T20:18:00.209 UTC
     * </code>
     * </pre>
     * 
     * @param date
     *            Valid Date object.
     * @return The given date in ISO-8601 format.
     * 
     */

    public static String toString(final Date date) {
        return isoFormatter.format(date);
    }

    /**
     * Formats a given date in the standard Java Date.toString(), using UTC
     * instead of locale time zone.
     * 
     * <pre>
     * <code>
     * System.out.println(UTCDate.toLegacyString(new Date()));
     * >>> "Tue Jul 03 07:33:57 UTC 2012"
     * </code>
     * </pre>
     * 
     * @param date
     *            Valid Date object.
     * @return The given date in Legacy Date.toString() format, e.g.
     *         "Tue Jul 03 09:34:17 IDT 2012"
     */
    public static String toLegacyString(final Date date) {
        return legacyFormatter.format(date);
    }

    /**
     * Formats a date in any given format at UTC.
     * 
     * <pre>
     * <code>
     * final Calendar moonLandingCalendar = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
     * moonLandingCalendar.set(1969, 7, 20, 20, 17, 40);
     * final Date moonLandingDate = moonLandingCalendar.getTime();
     * PrettyDate.toString(moonLandingDate, "yyyy-MM-dd")
     * >>> "1969-08-20"
     * </code>
     * </pre>
     * 
     * 
     * @param date
     *            Valid Date object.
     * @param format
     *            String representation of the format, e.g. "yyyy-MM-dd"
     * @return The given date formatted in the given format.
     */
    public static String toString(final Date date, final String format) {
        return toString(date, format, "UTC");
    }

    /**
     * Formats a date at any given format String, at any given Timezone String.
     * 
     * 
     * @param date
     *            Valid Date object
     * @param format
     *            String representation of the format, e.g. "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm"
     * @param timezone
     *            String representation of the time zone, e.g. "CST"
     * @return The formatted date in the given time zone.
     */
    public static String toString(final Date date, final String format, final String timezone) {
        final TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone(timezone);
        final SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat(format);
        formatter.setTimeZone(tz);
        return formatter.format(date);
    }
}

Answer 1

The thing about Date is that there are so many different time zones, so many different "standard" ways of representing the date and even, in some places, completely different calendar systems. As a result, Sun designed Date to not make any assumptions about anything and let application developers write whatever implementation best suited them.

So, if you find your implementation for PrettyDate works well for you, that's ok. My only comment about that is that heavy use of static methods smells of procedural, rather than object oriented thinking, and that's not a good thing. Embrace the objects.

Answer 2

Also be aware that SimpleDateFormat is not thread-safe. In a Multithreading Environment users should create a separate instance for each thread. For more information how to achieve it check this link

Answer 3

You've called strings like 2012-07-03T11:54:24.256 UTC "ISO" and the doc on your code says that it produces strings "...in compliance with ISO-8601." It does not. The only valid timezone specifiers in ISO-8601 are Z (for UTC) or numeric offsets (or nothing, meaning "local" time). Abbreviations like UTC, CDT, etc. are not part of the ISO-8601 format.

It's not a code problem, but it's a documentation and interoperation problem.