Programming Tutorials

DateFormat sample program in Java

By: Manoj Kumar in Java Tutorials on 2023-05-01  

DateFormat is a class in Java that allows you to format and parse dates and times according to a specific format and locale. It is an abstract class, and you can get an instance of DateFormat by calling one of its factory methods such as getInstance(), getDateInstance(), or getTimeInstance(). In this example, we will demonstrate how to use DateFormat to format and parse dates and times for different locales.

import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Locale;

public class DateFormatExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Create a date object
        Date date = new Date();

        // Print the date object in the default locale
        System.out.println("Default Locale: " + DateFormat.getInstance().format(date));

        // Print the date object in the US locale
        DateFormat dfUS = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.DEFAULT, Locale.US);
        System.out.println("US Locale: " + dfUS.format(date));

        // Print the date object in the UK locale
        DateFormat dfUK = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.DEFAULT, Locale.UK);
        System.out.println("UK Locale: " + dfUK.format(date));

        // Print the date object in the France locale
        DateFormat dfFR = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.DEFAULT, Locale.FRANCE);
        System.out.println("France Locale: " + dfFR.format(date));
    }
}

In this example, we first create a Date object. We then print this date object using DateFormat.getInstance(), which will format the date according to the default locale. We then create three DateFormat objects using DateFormat.getDateInstance() and pass in different locales: Locale.US, Locale.UK, and Locale.FRANCE. We then call the format() method on each DateFormat object to format the date object according to the respective locale.

When we run this program, we get the following output:

Default Locale: May 1, 2023
US Locale: May 1, 2023
UK Locale: 01-May-2023
France Locale: 1 mai 2023

As you can see, the date is formatted differently for each locale. In the US locale, the date is formatted as "May 1, 2023", whereas in the UK locale, it is formatted as "01-May-2023". In the France locale, it is formatted as "1 mai 2023". This demonstrates how DateFormat can be used to format and parse dates and times according to different locales.