Java - Formatting Symbols for SimpleDateFormat

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Introduction

The following table is the List of Formatting Symbols for Formatting Date and Time

Letter
 Date or Time Component
 Presentation
 Examples
G
 Era designator
 Text
 AD
y
 Year
 Year
 2018; 03
Y
 Week-based year
 Year
 2018; 03
M
 Month in year
 Month
 March; Mar; 03
w
 Week in year
 Number
 27
W
 Week in month
 Number
 2
D
 Day in year
 Number
 189
d
 Day in month
 Number
 10
F
 Day of week in month
 Number
 2
E
 Day in week
 Text
 Tuesday; Tue
a
 AM/PM marker
 Text
 PM
H
 Hour in day (0-23)
 Number
 0
k
 Hour in day (1-24)
 Number
 24
K
 Hour in AM/PM (0-11)
 Number
 0
h
 Hour in AM/PM (1-12)
 Number
 12
m
 Minute in hour
 Number
 30
s
 Second in minute
 Number
 55
S
 Millisecond
 Number
 978
z
 Time zone
 General time zone
 Pacific Standard Time; PST; GMT-08:00
Z
 Time zone
 RFC 822 time zone
 -0800

The following code shows how to embed your own message in the format.

Demo

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

public class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Create a GregorianCalendar object with September 19, 2028 as date
    GregorianCalendar gc = new GregorianCalendar(2028, Calendar.SEPTEMBER, 19);

    // Get date object
    Date birthDate = gc.getTime();

    // Create the pattern. You must place literals inside single quotes
    String pattern = "'I was born on the day' dd 'of the month' MMMM 'in' yyyy";

    // Create simple date format
    SimpleDateFormat simpleFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern);

    // Print the date
    System.out.println(simpleFormatter.format(birthDate));

  }//  ww  w.  java2s. com
}

Result

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