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Unparseable MMM-dd-yyyy

I will be direct with my question. I am wondering why I can't parse a fromat MMM-dd-yyyy into yyyy-MM-dd (java.sql.Date format)? Any suggestion on how I am going to convert a String into a format of (yyyy-MM-dd)?
Here is the code:
public DeadlineAction(String deadline){
putValue(NAME, deadline);
deadLine = deadline;
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy MM dd");
try {
finalDate = (Date) formatter.parse(deadLine);
}catch(ParseException e) {
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, e.getMessage(),"Error",JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
}
}
Thank you

Basically, you can't parse a String in the format of MMM-dd-yyyy using the format of yyyy MM dd, it just doesn't make sense, you need one formatter to parse the value and another to format itm for example
SimpleDateFormat to = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy MM dd");
SimpleDateFormat from = new SimpleDateFormat("MMM-dd-yyyy");
Date date = from.parse(deadLine);
String result = to.format(date)
The question that needs to be asked is, why you would bother. If your intention is to put this value into the database, you should be creating an instance of java.sql.Date (from the java.util.Date) and using PreparedStatement#setDate to apply it to your query, then letting the JDBC driver deal with it

The answer by MadProgrammer is correct. You must define a formatting pattern to fit the format of your input data string.
You could avoid the problem in the first place by using the java.time framework.
java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later (also back-ported to Java 6 & 7 and to Android). These classes supplant the old troublesome legacy date-time classes (java.util.Date/.Calendar).
ISO 8601
Your input strings are apparent is standard ISO 8601 format, YYYY-MM-DD such as 2016-01-23.
The java.time classes use ISO 8601 formats by default when parsing/generating strings that represent date-time values. So no need to specify a formatting pattern.
Parsing string
For a date-only value without time-of-day and without time zone, use LocalDate class.
LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.parse( "2016-01-23" );
Generating string
To generate a string representing that LocalDate object’s value, just call toString to get a string in ISO 8601 format.
String output = localDate.toString(); // 2016-01-23
For other formats, use the java.time.format package. Usually best to let java.time automatically localize to the user’s human language and cultural norms defined by a Locale.
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofLocalizedDate( FormatStyle.MEDIUM );
Locale locale = Locale.CANADA_FRENCH;
formatter = formatter.withLocale( locale );
String output = localDate.format( formatter );
Or you can specify your own particular pattern. Note that you should still specify a Locale to determine aspects such as the name-of-month or name-of-day. Here is a demo of the pattern that seems to be asked in the Question (not sure as Question is unclear).
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern( "MMM-dd-yyyy" );
Locale locale = Locale.US;
formatter = formatter.withLocale( locale );
String output = localDate.format( formatter );

Try something like:
try {
final String deadLine = "Oct-12-2006";
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("MMM-dd-yyyy");//define formatter for yout date time
Date finalDate = formatter.parse(deadLine);//parse your string as Date
SimpleDateFormat formatter2 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");// define your desired format
System.out.println(formatter2.format(finalDate));//format the string to your desired date format
} catch (Exception e) {
//handle
}

Your example is not unparseable. I removed the dashes from MMM-dd-yyyy to MMM dd yyyy. You can put them back if needed. I also removed the any extra code to make the solution clear.
import java.sql.Date;
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
public DeadlineAction(String deadline){
//if deadline has format similar to "December 19 2011"
try {
finalDate = new java.sql.Date(
((java.util.Date) new SimpleDateFormat("MMM dd yyyy").parse(deadline)).getTime());
}catch(ParseException e) {
//Your exception code
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
This works for almost every conversion to sqlDate. Just change SimpleDateFormat("MMM dd yyyy") to what you need it to be.
Example: new SimpleDateFormat("MMM-yyyy-dd").parse("NOVEMBER-2012-30")

Timestamp string to timestamp in java

I have the following string "2015-04-02 11:52:00+02" and I need to parse it in Java to a Timestamp.
I tried all sorts of formats including
SimpleDateFormat mdyFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss+Z");
but nothing seems to work - I keep getting a ParseException
Can anyone help?
I need something like:
SimpleDateFormat mdyFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss+Z");
Timestamp t = new Timestamp(mdyFormat.parse("2015-04-02 11:52:00+02").getTime());

Try This
String str="2009-12-31 23:59:59 +0100";
/\
||
Provide Space while providing timeZone
SimpleDateFormat mdyFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss Z");
System.out.println(mdyFormat.parse(str));
Output
Fri Jan 01 04:29:59 IST 2010

java.sql.Timestamp objects don't have time zones - they are instants in time, like java.util.Date
So try this:
SimpleDateFormat mdyFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
Timestamp t = new Timestamp(mdyFormat.parse("2015-04-02 11:52:00").getTime());

try "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssX"
Z stand for timezone in the following format: +0800
X stand for timezone in the following format: +08
Examples here

ISO 8601
Replace that SPACE in the middle with a T and you have a valid standard (ISO 8601) string format that can be parsed directly by either the Joda-Time library or the new java.time package built into Java 8 (inspired by Joda-Time). Search StackOverflow for hundreds of examples.
If using java.time, read my comment on Question about a bug when parsing hours-only offset value.
Example in Joda-Time 2.7.
String inputRaw = "2015-04-02 11:52:00+02";
String input = inputRaw.replace( " ", "T" );
DateTimeZone zone = DateTimeZone.forID( "America/Montreal" ); // Specify desired time zone adjustment.
DateTime dateTime = new DateTime( input, zone );

Java converting a Date to a different format

I have a date string in this format:
String fieldAsString = "11/26/2011 14:47:31";
I am trying to convert it to a Date type object in this format: "yyyy.MM.dd HH:mm:ss"
I tried using the following code:
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy.MM.dd HH:mm:ss");
Date newFormat = sdf.parse(fieldAsString);
However, this throws an exception that it is an Unparsable date.
So I tried something like this:
Date date = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss").parse(fieldAsString);
String newFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy.MM.dd HH:mm:ss").format(date)
However, this new format is now in the 'String' format but I want my function to return the new formatted date as a 'Date' object type. How would I do this?
Thanks!

You seem to be under the impression that a Date object has a format. It doesn't. It sounds like you just need this:
Date date = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss").parse(fieldAsString);
(You should consider specifying a locale and possibly a time zone, mind you.)
Then you've got your Date value. A format is only relevant when you later want to convert it to text... that's when you should specify the format. It's important to separate the value being represent (an instant in time, in this case) from a potential textual representation. It's like integers - there's no difference between these two values:
int x = 0x10;
int y = 16;
They're the same value, just represented differently in source code.
Additionally consider using Joda Time for all your date/time work - it's a much cleaner API than java.util.*.

The answer by Jon Skeet is correct and complete.
Internal to java.util.Date (and Date-Time seen below), the date-time value is stored as milliseconds since the Unix epoch. There is no String inside! When you need a textual representation of the date-time in a format readable by a human, either call toString or use a formatter object to create a String object. Likewise when parsing, the input string is thrown away, not stored inside the Date object (or DateTime object in Joda-Time).
Joda-Time
For fun, here is the (better) way to do this work with Joda-Time, as mentioned by Mr. Skeet.
One major difference is that while a java.util.Date class seems to have a time zone, it does not. A Joda-Time DateTime in contrast does truly know its own time zone.
String input = "11/26/2011 14:47:31";
// From text to date-time.
DateTimeZone timeZone = DateTimeZone.forID( "Pacific/Honolulu" ); // Time zone intended but unrecorded by the input string.
DateTimeFormatter formatterInput = DateTimeFormat.forPattern( "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss" ).withZone( timeZone );
// No words in the input, so no need for a specific Locale.
DateTime dateTime = formatterInput.parseDateTime( input );
// From date-time to text.
DateTimeFormatter formatterOutput_MontréalEnFrançais = DateTimeFormat.forStyle( "FS" ).withLocale( java.util.Locale.CANADA_FRENCH ).withZone( DateTimeZone.forID( "America/Montreal" ) );
String output = formatterOutput_MontréalEnFrançais.print( dateTime );
Dump to console…
System.out.println( "input: " + input );
System.out.println( "dateTime: " + dateTime );
System.out.println( "dateTime as milliseconds since Unix epoch: " + dateTime.getMillis() );
System.out.println( "dateTime in UTC: " + dateTime.withZone( DateTimeZone.UTC ) );
System.out.println( "output: " + output );
When run…
input: 11/26/2011 14:47:31
dateTime: 2011-11-26T14:47:31.000-10:00
dateTime as milliseconds since Unix epoch: 1322354851000
dateTime in UTC: 2011-11-27T00:47:31.000Z
output: samedi 26 novembre 2011 19:47
Search StackOverflow for "joda" to find many more examples.

Convert miliseconds to date and time and format by locale

How can I convert milliseconds to a time and date string and format it correctly like the user expects it to be?
I did the following:
((SimpleDateFormat)DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.DEFAULT,Locale.getDefault())).format(new Date(Long.parseLong(timeInMilliseconds)));
Which seems to work, but I only get the date with this method.
Edit:
To clearify, I need to get the time/date pattern from system somehow to give each user his common format
Now I combined your solutions with mine and it seems to work like I expect.
private String getFormattedDateTimeString(Context context, String timeInMilliseconds) {
SimpleDateFormat dateInstance = (SimpleDateFormat) DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.DEFAULT, Locale.getDefault());
SimpleDateFormat timeInstance = (SimpleDateFormat) DateFormat.getTimeInstance(DateFormat.DEFAULT, Locale.getDefault());
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.setTimeInMillis(Long.parseLong(timeInMilliseconds));
String date = dateInstance.format(calendar.getTime());
String time = timeInstance.format(calendar.getTime());
return date + " " + time;
}
Why the hell do I get downvotes for this question???

All the other answers are missing the point that the string representation of the date-time needs to be localized.
Joda-Time
The Joda-Time 2.3 library makes this work much easier.
Joda-Time leverages a java.util.Locale to determine proper formatting of a date-time's string representation. The DateTimeFormat class offers an option for "style" pattern as a way of generating a DateTimeFormatter. You specify a two character style pattern. The first character is the date style, and the second character is the time style. Specify a character of 'S' for short style, 'M' for medium, 'L' for long, and 'F' for full. A date or time may be omitted by specifying a style character '-'.
If you do not specify a Locale or time zone, the JVM's default will be used.
Locale
To create a java.util.Locale, you need:
Language code (either, see combined list)
ISO 639 alpha-2
ISO 639 alpha-3
Country Code (either)
ISO 3166 alpha-2 country code
UN M.49 numeric-3 area code
Example Code
// Simulate input.
long millisecondsSinceEpoch = DateTime.now().getMillis();
// Proceed with a 'long' value in hand.
DateTime dateTimeUtc = new DateTime( millisecondsSinceEpoch, DateTimeZone.UTC );
DateTimeZone timeZone = DateTimeZone.forID( "Asia/Riyadh" );
DateTime dateTimeRiyadh = dateTimeUtc.withZone( timeZone );
// 'ar' = Arabic, 'SA' = Saudi Arabia.
java.util.Locale locale = new Locale( "ar", "SA" ); // ( language code, country code );
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormat.forStyle( "FF" ).withLocale( locale ).withZone( timeZone );
String output = formatter.print( dateTimeUtc );
Dump to console…
System.out.println( "millisecondsSinceEpoch: " + millisecondsSinceEpoch );
System.out.println( "dateTimeUtc: " + dateTimeUtc );
System.out.println( "dateTimeRiyadh: " + dateTimeRiyadh );
System.out.println( "output: " + output );
When run…
millisecondsSinceEpoch: 1392583624765
dateTimeUtc: 2014-02-16T20:47:04.765Z
dateTimeRiyadh: 2014-02-16T23:47:04.765+03:00
output: 16 فبراير, 2014 AST 11:47:04 م

Leaving your code as is, just change:
Instead of
getDateInstance
try
getDateTimeInstance
Or, you'd better use:
SimpleDateFormat fmt = new SimpleDateFormat("MM-dd-yyyy HH:mm:ss");
String datetime = fmt.format(cal.getTimeInMillis());

Use this...
String dateFormat = "dd/MM/yyyy hh:mm:ss.SSS";
// Create a DateFormatter object for displaying date in specified format.
DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat(dateFormat);
// Create a calendar object that will convert the date and time value in milliseconds to date.
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.setTimeInMillis(milliSeconds);
String formatedDate = formatter.format(calendar.getTime());

Try this
SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss");// you can rearange it as you like
cal.setTimeInMillis(timeInMilliseconds); //convert the time in milli to a date
String date = format.format(cal.getTime());// here you get your time formated

Why on earth do you want to use a calendar object???? It's just a waste of resources.
// Create a DateFormatter object for displaying date in specified format.
DateFormat myDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS");
String formatedDate = myDateFormat.format(new Date(timeInMilliseconds));

String Date Java

// Im new to java programming
I have a String object that represents a date/time in this format : "2013-06-09 14:20:00" (yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss)
I want to convert it to a Date object so i can perform calculations on it but im confused on how to do this.
I tried :
String string = "2013-06-09 14:20:00";
Date date = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss").parse(string);
System.out.println(date);
//Prints Mon Dec 31 00:00:00 GMT 2012
Any help appreciated
Ok so I have now updated my code to as follows i'm getting the correct date/time now when I print the date but is this the correct implementation :
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
String string = "2013-06-09 14:20:00";
Date date = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss").parse(string);
System.out.println(dateFormat.format(date));
//prints 2013-06-09 14:20:00
Thx to everyone that's answered/commented thus far

The format is wrong. Use this instead:
"yyyy-dd-MM HH:mm:ss"
Indeed your last program version is ok, except you don't need to declare the SimpleDateFormat twice. Simply:
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
String string = "2013-06-09 14:20:00";
Date date = dateFormat.parse(string);
System.out.println(dateFormat.format(date));

String string = "2013-06-09 14:20:00";
and the DATE object format is "yyyy-dd-MM HH:mm:ss"
You can get Date,Day,month and many more by using Date object which is present in
java.util.Date package , like as follows.
Date d = new Date(string);
This will call constructor of Date object for which you are passing 'string' variable which contains date.
d.getDay(); // retrieve day on that particular day
d.getDate(); // retrieve Date
and many more are avaiable like this.

Using java.util.Date
The answer by zzKozak is correct. Well, almost correct. The example code omits required exception handling. Like this…
java.text.DateFormat dateFormat = new java.text.SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
String string = "2013-06-09 14:20:00";
Date date = null;
try {
date = dateFormat.parse(string);
} catch ( ParseException e ) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("date: " + dateFormat.format(date));
Don't Use java.util.Date!
Avoid using java.util.Date & Calendar classes bundled with Java. They are notoriously bad in both design and implementation.
Instead use a competent date-time library. In Java that means either:
The third-party open-source Joda-Time
In the forthcoming Java 8, the new java.time.* classes defined by JSR 310 and inspired by Joda-Time.
Time Zone
Your question and code fail to address the issue of time zones. If you ignore time zones, you'll get defaults. That may cause unexpected behaviors when deployed in production. Better practice is to always specify a time zone.
Formatter
If you replace a space with a 'T' per the standard ISO 8601 format, then you can conveniently feed that string directly to a constructor of a Joda-Time DateTime instance.
If you must use that string as-is, then define a formatter to specify that format. You can find many examples of that here on StackOverflow.com.
Example Code
Here is some example code using Joda-Time 2.3, running in Java 7.
I arbitrarily chose a time zone of Montréal.
// © 2013 Basil Bourque. This source code may be used freely forever by anyone taking full responsibility for doing so.
// import org.joda.time.*;
// import org.joda.time.format.*;
// Specify a time zone rather than rely on default.
// Necessary to handle Daylight Saving Time (DST) and other anomalies.
DateTimeZone timeZone = DateTimeZone.forID( "America/Montreal" );
DateTime dateTime = new DateTime( "2013-06-09T14:20:00", timeZone ); // Or pass DateTimeZone.UTC as time zone for UTC/GMT.
System.out.println( "dateTime: " + dateTime );
When run…
dateTime: 2013-06-09T14:20:00.000-04:00