Convert String to Calendar Object in Java

I am new to Java, usually work with PHP.

I am trying to convert this string:

Mon Mar 14 16:02:37 GMT 2011

Into a Calendar Object so that I can easily pull the Year and Month like this:

String yearAndMonth = cal.get(Calendar.YEAR)+cal.get(Calendar.MONTH);

Would it be a bad idea to parse it manually? Using a substring method?

Any advice would help thanks!

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss z yyyy", Locale.ENGLISH);
cal.setTime(sdf.parse("Mon Mar 14 16:02:37 GMT 2011"));// all done

note: set Locale according to your environment/requirement

See Also

• Javadoc

tl;dr

The modern approach uses the java.time classes.

YearMonth.from(
    ZonedDateTime.parse( 
        "Mon Mar 14 16:02:37 GMT 2011" , 
        DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern( "E MMM d HH:mm:ss z uuuu" )
     )
).toString()

2011-03

Avoid legacy date-time classes

The modern way is with java.time classes. The old date-time classes such as Calendar have proven to be poorly-designed, confusing, and troublesome.

Define a custom formatter to match your string input.

String input = "Mon Mar 14 16:02:37 GMT 2011";
DateTimeFormatter f = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern( "E MMM d HH:mm:ss z uuuu" );

Parse as a ZonedDateTime.

ZonedDateTime zdt = ZonedDateTime.parse( input , f );

You are interested in the year and month. The java.time classes include YearMonth class for that purpose.

YearMonth ym = YearMonth.from( zdt );

You can interrogate for the year and month numbers if needed.

int year = ym.getYear();
int month = ym.getMonthValue();

But the toString method generates a string in standard ISO 8601 format.

String output = ym.toString();

Put this all together.

String input = "Mon Mar 14 16:02:37 GMT 2011";
DateTimeFormatter f = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern( "E MMM d HH:mm:ss z uuuu" );
ZonedDateTime zdt = ZonedDateTime.parse( input , f );
YearMonth ym = YearMonth.from( zdt );
int year = ym.getYear();
int month = ym.getMonthValue();

Dump to console.

System.out.println( "input: " + input );
System.out.println( "zdt: " + zdt );
System.out.println( "ym: " + ym );

input: Mon Mar 14 16:02:37 GMT 2011

zdt: 2011-03-14T16:02:37Z[GMT]

ym: 2011-03

Live code

See this code running in IdeOne.com.

Conversion

If you must have a Calendar object, you can convert to a GregorianCalendar using new methods added to the old classes.

GregorianCalendar gc = GregorianCalendar.from( zdt );

About java.time

The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.

To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.

The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.

You may exchange java.time objects directly with your database. Use a JDBC driver compliant with JDBC 4.2 or later. No need for strings, no need for java.sql.* classes. Hibernate 5 & JPA 2.2 support java.time.

Where to obtain the java.time classes?

• Java SE 8, Java SE 9, Java SE 10, Java SE 11, and later - Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
  • Java 9 brought some minor features and fixes.
• Java SE 6 and Java SE 7
  • Most of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
• Android
  • Later versions of Android (26+) bundle implementations of the java.time classes.
  • For earlier Android (<26), the process of API desugaring brings a subset of the java.time functionality not originally built into Android.
    • If the desugaring does not offer what you need, the ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above) to Android. See How to use ThreeTenABP….