How do I convert the date from one format to another date object in another format without using any deprecated classes?

Use SimpleDateFormat#format:

DateFormat originalFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM dd, yyyy", Locale.ENGLISH);
DateFormat targetFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
Date date = originalFormat.parse("August 21, 2012");
String formattedDate = targetFormat.format(date);  // 20120821

Also note that parse takes a String, not a Date object, which is already parsed.


tl;dr

LocalDate.parse( 
    "January 08, 2017" , 
    DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern( "MMMM dd, uuuu" , Locale.US ) 
).format( DateTimeFormatter.BASIC_ISO_DATE ) 

Using java.time

The Question and other Answers use troublesome old date-time classes, now legacy, supplanted by the java.time classes.

You have date-only values, so use a date-only class. The LocalDate class represents a date-only value without time-of-day and without time zone.

String input = "January 08, 2017";
Locale l = Locale.US ;
DateTimeFormatter f = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern( "MMMM dd, uuuu" , l );
LocalDate ld = LocalDate.parse( input , f );

Your desired output format is defined by the ISO 8601 standard. For a date-only value, the “expanded” format is YYYY-MM-DD such as 2017-01-08 and the “basic” format that minimizes the use of delimiters is YYYYMMDD such as 20170108.

I strongly suggest using the expanded format for readability. But if you insist on the basic format, that formatter is predefined as a constant on the DateTimeFormatter class named BASIC_ISO_DATE.

String output = ld.format( DateTimeFormatter.BASIC_ISO_DATE );

See this code run live at IdeOne.com.

ld.toString(): 2017-01-08

output: 20170108


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.

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

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

Where to obtain the java.time classes?

  • Java SE 8 and SE 9 and later
    • Built-in.
    • Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
    • Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes.
  • Java SE 6 and SE 7
    • Much of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
  • Android
    • The ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above) for Android specifically.
    • See How to use ThreeTenABP….

The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.


Since Java 8, we can achieve this as follows:

private static String convertDate(String strDate) 
{
    //for strdate = 2017 July 25

    DateTimeFormatter f = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder().appendPattern("yyyy MMMM dd")
                                        .toFormatter();

    LocalDate parsedDate = LocalDate.parse(strDate, f);
    DateTimeFormatter f2 = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("MM/d/yyyy");

    String newDate = parsedDate.format(f2);

    return newDate;
}

The output will be : "07/25/2017"

Tags:

Java