JAVA SimpleDateFormat returns wrong format

Question

I need to convert a simple String eg:

30.06.2017 18:00

to a Date, but the simpledateformat i set just wont apply. for some reason it gives output like this

Fri Jun 30 18:00:00 UTC 2017

I know there are other questions concerning this issue , but I think iam certain that i followed all the instructions correctly, I set the format correct and the strange thing is , I used the same code in another place and it works fine. I tried using the locale.ENGLISH part and the "strict" attribute.. really seems like netbeans is trolling me

THANK U SO MUCH

          System.out.println(newtoday);

gives

          "30.06.2017 18:00";

then I try to format it:

          try {
              thedate = new SimpleDateFormat("dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm").parse(newtoday);
                            System.out.println(thedate);
          } catch (ParseException ex) {
              Logger.getLogger(frame1.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
          }  

Output is

          Fri Jun 30 18:00:00 UTC 2017

---

Thank u dpr for ur answer but the problem is not the "output"

what im doing is :

collect a timeseries for jfreechart:

i have a list of dates to parse and add which works fine

        Date thedate=null;
          try {
              thedate = new SimpleDateFormat("dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm", Locale.ENGLISH).parse(time);
          } catch (ParseException ex) {
              Logger.getLogger(frame1.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
          }ts1.add(new Millisecond(thedate), ap);

, but the last element of the timesieries has a different format, thats why i have to format it, which works to get a string in the right format (newtoday)

now after i format the date i use again

       ts1.add(new Millisecond(thedate), apt);

but it doesnt add to the series

now i thought the problem is the dateformat taht isnt recognized by the addtotimeseries ,

if u say its not the format.. do u see another error?

cheers

Answer 1

You output the date using

System.out.println(thedate);

This doesn't use the date format you used to parse the date, but uses the toString() method of java.util.Date. This is why you see the date being print in a different format than expected.

To use you date format for parsing and output do something like this:

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm");
Date thedate = dateFormat.parse(newtoday);
System.out.println(dateFormat.format(thedate));