I got the error "java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "1/10/24 7:00 PM"" when trying to parse

Question

I have a date string as "1/10/24 7:00 PM" (10th Jan.2024). How to parse it using SimpleDateFormat?

String date_time = "1/10/24 7:00 PM";
Instant answer;
try {
    answer = Instant.parse(date_time);
} catch(DateTimeParseException ex) {
    SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat();
    simpleDateFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
    answer = simpleDateFormat.parse(date_time).toInstant();
    System.out.println(answer);
}

Answer 1

I have a date string as "1/10/24 7:00 PM" (10th Jan.2024). How to parse it using SimpleDateFormat?

The java.util date-time API and their corresponding parsing/formatting type, SimpleDateFormat are outdated and error-prone. In March 2014, the modern Date-Time API supplanted the legacy date-time API. Since then, it has been strongly recommended to switch to java.time, the modern date-time API.

The given date-time string does not have time zone information; therefore, parse it into a LocalDateTime and then apply the system-default time-zone to convert it into a ZonedDateTime. Finally, convert the ZonedDateTime into an Instant.

Demo:

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String strDateTime = "1/10/24 7:00 PM";
        DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("M/d/uu h:mm a", Locale.ENGLISH);
        LocalDateTime ldt = LocalDateTime.parse(strDateTime, dtf);
        ZonedDateTime zdt = ldt.atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault());
        Instant output = zdt.toInstant();
        System.out.println(output);
    }
}

Output:

2024-01-10T19:00:00Z

ONLINE DEMO

Note that you can use Instant#parse only for those strings which conform to DateTimeFormatter.ISO_INSTANT e.g. Instant.parse("2011-12-03T10:15:30Z").

Learn about the modern date-time API from Trail: Date Time