Java Additional Topics

Java Convert Date to String

Last Updated : 29 Sept 2026

In Java, dealing with dates and times is a common task in various applications, from simple utilities to complex enterprise systems. Often, we will find yourself needing to convert dates to strings for display or data manipulation purposes. In this section, we will explore the different approaches to converting a Date object to a String in Java.

We can convert Date to String in Java by using the format() method of java.text.DateFormat class.

format() method of DateFormat

The SimpleDateFormat class allows us to format a Date object into a string representation according to a specified pattern. DateFormat is an abstract class. The child class of DateFormat is SimpleDateFormat. It is the implementation of DateFormat class.

Signature

The signature of format() method is given below:/p>

Java Date to String Example

Let's see the simple code to convert Date to String in Java.

                Date date = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
                DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss");
                String strDate = dateFormat.format(date);
                

Example

Let us take an example to convert date to string.

Java

import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Calendar;
 public class DateToStringExample1 {
       public static void main(String args[]){
                Date date = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
                DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss");
                String strDate = dateFormat.format(date);
                System.out.println("Converted String: " + strDate);
               
        }
}

Output:

Converted String: 2024-43-17 03:43:28

In this example, we create a SimpleDateFormat instance with the desired pattern "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" to represent the date in "year-month-day hour:minute:second" format.

Let's see the complete example to convert date and time into String in Java by using the format() method of java.text.SimpleDateFormat class.

Java

import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Locale;
public class DateToStringExample2 {
public static void main(String[] args) {
	Date date = new Date();
	SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy");
	String strDate = formatter.format(date);
	System.out.println("Date Format with MM/dd/yyyy : "+strDate);

	formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-M-yyyy hh:mm:ss");
	strDate = formatter.format(date);
	System.out.println("Date Format with dd-M-yyyy hh:mm:ss : "+strDate);

	formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd MMMM yyyy");
	strDate = formatter.format(date);
	System.out.println("Date Format with dd MMMM yyyy : "+strDate);

	formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd MMMM yyyy zzzz");
	strDate = formatter.format(date);
	System.out.println("Date Format with dd MMMM yyyy zzzz : "+strDate);

	formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("E, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss z");
	strDate = formatter.format(date);
	System.out.println("Date Format with E, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss z : "+strDate);
}
}

Output:

Date Format with MM/dd/yyyy : 03/17/2024
Date Format with dd-M-yyyy hh:mm:ss : 17-3-2024 03:45:32
Date Format with dd MMMM yyyy : 17 March 2024
Date Format with dd MMMM yyyy zzzz : 17 March 2024 Greenwich Mean Time
Date Format with E, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss z : Sun, 17 Mar 2024 15:45:32 GMT

Converting Date to String Using DateTimeFormatter (Java 8+)

With the introduction of the java.time package in Java 8, we can use the DateTimeFormatter class to achieve the same result. Here's how we can do it:

Java

import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
public class DateToStringExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Get the current date and time
        LocalDateTime currentDateTime = LocalDateTime.now();
        // Create a DateTimeFormatter with the desired pattern
        DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
        // Format the date and time using the formatter
        String formattedDateTime = currentDateTime.format(formatter);
        // Print the formatted date and time
        System.out.println("Formatted DateTime: " + formattedDateTime);
    }
}

Output:

Formatted DateTime: 2024-03-17 15:30:45

Explanation

This output represents the current date and time formatted according to the specified pattern ("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss").

In this example: We use LocalDateTime.now() to obtain the current date and time. DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss") creates a formatter with the desired pattern that represents the year, month, day, hour, minute, and second components of the date and time. currentDateTime.format(formatter) formats the LocalDateTime object using the specified formatter, resulting in a string representation of the date and time according to the pattern.

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