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javadateparsingformatterjava-time

java.time DateTimeFormatter pattern for timezone offset


I am trying to parse: 2014-05-02-10.45.05.993280-5:00 where the -5:00 is the offset from UTC. Using a java.time DateTimeFormatter in Java 8.

For the first bit I have the following: yyyy-MM-dd-HH.mm.ss.SSSSSS however, I can't figure out what the pattern should be to parse the offset also.

If I had the offset with 4 digits (-05:00) I could use: yyyy-MM-dd-HH.mm.ss.SSSSSSxxx, but this doesn't work for 3 digits.

Any ideas?


Solution

  • Use capital letter X instead of x, hence XXX. The difference is that big X can recognize the input letter "Z" as UTC-Offset +00:00 while small pattern letter X cannot.

    Suggested pattern:

    yyyy-MM-dd-HH.mm.ss.SSSSSSXXX
    

    Please be also aware of following JDK-bug:

    java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter cannot parse an offset with single digit hour

    UPDATE:

    I have now tested the described workaround in the bug-log.

    String input = "2014-05-02-10.45.05.993280-5:00";
    DateTimeFormatter f = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
            .appendPattern("yyyy-MM-dd-HH.mm.ss.SSSSSS")
            .parseLenient()
            .appendOffset("+HH:MM", "Z")
            .toFormatter();
    System.out.println(f.parse(input, ZonedDateTime::from));
    

    But it throws an exception:

    Exception in thread "main" java.time.format.DateTimeParseException: Text '2014-05-02-10.45.05.993280-5:00' could not be parsed at index 26 at java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter.parseResolved0(DateTimeFormatter.java:1947) at java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter.parse(DateTimeFormatter.java:1849) at HelloWorld.main(HelloWorld.java:16)

    So lenient parsing does not help either. So there are now only three options left for you:

    • Use workaround suggested by bug reporter: [...] workaround is to parse the date/time separately, use a hand coded parser for the offset and combine the LocalDateTime with the hand parsed offset. Not an easy work around.

    • Try your own specialized string preprocessing. If you have a fixed format then you can try to insert the zero-digit at position 26 (if the total input length is one digit too small).

    • Or you use an external library which can do this. My library Time4J (v4.0) can do that if you are willing to add an extra dependency. See this code:

    String input = "2014-05-02-10.45.05.993280-5:00";
    ZonalDateTime zdt =
        ZonalDateTime.parse(
            input,
            Moment.localFormatter("yyyy-MM-dd-HH.mm.ss.SSSSSSXXX", PatternType.CLDR));
    System.out.println(zdt); // 2014-05-02T10:45:05,993280UTC-05:00
    ZonedDateTime result = zdt.toTemporalAccessor();
    

    Update: According to JDK-bug-status, the bug has been fixed for Java-9, but a backport for Java-8 does not seem to be available though.