Parsing a date with short month without dot

Question

I have a String that represents a date in French locale : 09-oct-08 :

I need to parse that String so I came up with this SimpleDa

Answer 1

You can simply remove the ".":

df2.format(new Date()).replaceAll("\\.", ""));

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Edit, regarding the lemon answer:

It seems to be a problem with the formatting when using the Locale French. Thus, I suggest that you simply use the . removal as I explained.

Indeed, the following code:

    String format2 = "dd-MMM-yy";
    Date date = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
    SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(format2, Locale.FRENCH);
    System.out.println(sdf.format(date));
    sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(format2, Locale.ENGLISH);
    System.out.println(sdf.format(date));

displays the following output:

28-oct.-09
28-Oct-09

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Edit again

Ok, I got your problem right now.

I don't really know how you can solve this problem without processing your String first. The idea is to replace the month in the original String by a comprehensive month:

        String[] givenMonths = { "jan", "fév", "mars", "avr.", "mai", "juin", "juil", "août", "sept", "oct", "nov", "déc" };
        String[] realMonths = { "janv.", "févr.", "mars", "avr.", "mai", "juin", "juil.", "août", "sept.", "oct.", "nov.", "déc." };
        String original = "09-oct-08";
        for (int i = 0; i < givenMonths.length; i++) {
            original = original.replaceAll(givenMonths[i], realMonths[i]);
        }
        String format2 = "dd-MMM-yy";
        DateFormat df2 = new SimpleDateFormat(format2, Locale.FRENCH);
        Date date = df2.parse(original);
        System.out.println("--> " + date);

I agree, this is awful, but I don't see any other solution if you use to SimpleDateFormat and Date classes.

Another solution is to use a real date and time library instead of the original JDK ones, such as Joda Time.