parsing dates with variable spaces

Question

I am using Joda to parse dates and have a format where leading zeros are not used, e.g.:

 Mon Nov 20 14:40:36 2006
 Mon Nov  6 14:40:36 2006

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Answer 1

java.time and format pattern letter p

Here’s the modern answer, using java.time, the successor of Joda-Time.

    DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("EEE MMM ppd HH:mm:ss uuuu", Locale.ENGLISH);

    String[] stringsToParse = {
            "Mon Nov 20 14:40:36 2006",
            "Mon Nov  6 14:40:36 2006"
    };
    for (String dateTimeString : stringsToParse) {
        LocalDateTime dateTime = LocalDateTime.parse(dateTimeString, formatter);
        System.out.println(dateTime);
    }

Output:

2006-11-20T14:40:36
2006-11-06T14:40:36

To DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern format letter p means padding with spaces on the left. pp means padding to two position. It can be used for both formatting and — as here — parsing.

I know you asked about Joda-Time. The Joda-Time home page says:

Note that Joda-Time is considered to be a largely “finished” project. No major enhancements are planned. If using Java SE 8, please migrate to java.time (JSR-310).

Links

• Oracle tutorial: Date Time explaining how to use java.time.
• Documentation of DateTimeFormatter
• Joda-Time - Home