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javasimpledateformatdate-formatdate

Java' SimpleDateFormat parsing dates incorrectly

I am trying to parse timestamps using the format "yyyymmddHHssmm". I have two such time stamps:

String timeStamp1 = "20190612221303"//this means 12June2019 10:13:03pm
String timeStamp2 = "20190512222303"//this means 12May2019 10:23:03pm

So I am trying to convert these timestamp string to java date using the following :

Date date1= new SimpleDateFormat("yyyymmddHHssmm").parse(timeStamp1);
Date date2 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyymmddHHssmm").parse(timeStamp2);

So obviously when I do a 

System.out.println(date1.getTime() > date2.getTime());

I would expect the above statement to print true. But alas it prints false.

Inface the .getTime() of Date prints 1547310793000 for date1 and 1547310803000 for date2, which is obviously incorrect. Could someone point out what is going on here.

Solution

  • The format that you have used:yyyymmddHHssmm is ambiguous.

    I believe the 5th and 6th characters are used to define months. Use MM in caps for that.

    You have used small mm, which means minutes