Android date format using SimpleDate

Question

I am working on an XML Parser for Android with twelve different items and I need help creating a date for each item. This is what I have so far:

TextView detailsPubdate = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.detailspubdate);

I am looking to make the date look like this: Saturday, September 3. Thank you for your help!

Answer 1

If you are looking for todays date, you can do this by using the Date object.

Date today = new Date();//this creates a date representing this instance in time.

Then pass the date to the SimpleDateFormat.format(Date) method.

// "EEEE, MMMM, d" is the pattern to use to get your desired formatted date.
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("EEEE, MMMM, d");
String formattedDate = sdf.format(today);

Finally, you can set this String into your TextView

detailsPubdate.setText(formattedDate);

Here is the documentation for SimpleDateFormat. The documentation shows the various patterns available to format Date objects.

Answer 2

java.time

In March 2014, Java 8 introduced the modern, java.time date-time API which supplanted the error-prone legacy java.util date-time API. Any new code should use the java.time API^*.

I am looking to make the date look like this: Saturday, September 3.

Apart from the format and the use of modern API, the most important point to consider is Locale. The text you want to get is in English; therefore, if you do not use Locale in your code, the output will be in the default Locale set in the JVM in which your code will be executed. Check Always specify a Locale with a date-time formatter for custom formats to learn more about it.

Solution using modern date-time API

Get the current date-time using a ZonedDateTime now(ZoneId) and format it as required.

Demo:

public class Main {
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        // ZoneId.systemDefault() returns the default time zone of the JVM. Replace it
        // with the applicable ZoneId e.g., ZoneId.of("America/Los_Angeles")
        ZonedDateTime now = ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId.systemDefault());

        // Default format
        System.out.println(now);

        // Formatted string
        DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("EEEE, MMMM d", Locale.ENGLISH);
        String formattedString = now.format(formatter);
        System.out.println(formattedString); // detailsPubdate.setText(formattedString);
    }
}

Output:

2024-11-10T12:02:02.644429400Z[Europe/London]
Sunday, November 10

Online Demo

Note: For whatever reason, if you need an instance of java.util.Date from this object of ZonedDateTime, you can do so as follows:

Date.from(now.toInstant());

Learn more about the modern date-time API from Trail: Date Time.

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^{* If you receive a java.util.Date object, convert it to a java.time.Instant object using Date#toInstant, and derive other java.time date-time objects from it.}