Formatting a display is a common requirement when creating a program. Information in a good format can be seen as an added value to the user of the program. Using Java SimpleDateFormat we can easily format a date in our program.

package org.kodejava.example.text;

import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;

public class DateFormatExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Date date = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();

        // Display a date in day, month, year format
        DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
        String today = formatter.format(date);
        System.out.println("Today : " + today);

        // Display date with day name in a short format
        formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE, dd/MM/yyyy");
        today = formatter.format(date);
        System.out.println("Today : " + today);

        // Display date with a short day and month name
        formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE, dd MMM yyyy");
        today = formatter.format(date);
        System.out.println("Today : " + today);

        // Formatting date with full day and month name and show time up to
        // milliseconds with AM/PM
        formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("EEEE, dd MMMM yyyy, hh:mm:ss.SSS a");
        today = formatter.format(date);
        System.out.println("Today : " + today);
    }
}

Let’s view what we got on the console:

Today : 28/01/2018
Today : Sun, 28/01/2018
Today : Sun, 28 Jan 2018
Today : Sunday, 28 January 2018, 03:09:43.293 PM

• Author
• Recent Posts

Wayan Saryada

Founder at Kode Java Org

I am a programmer, a runner, a recreational diver, currently live in the island of Bali, Indonesia. Mostly programming in Java, Spring Framework, Hibernate / JPA. If these posts help, you can support me, buy me a cup of coffee or tea. Thank you 🥳

Latest posts by Wayan Saryada (see all)

• How do I convert java.util.TimeZone to java.time.ZoneId? - April 25, 2020
• How do I get a list of all TimeZones Ids using Java 8? - April 25, 2020
• How do I get HTTP headers using HttpClient HEAD request? - April 22, 2020