How do I parse a date in September

August 12, 2022

I am trying to parse dates with the format "27-Sep-2017".

So I tried

String dateStr = "27-Sep-2017";
DateTimeFormatter fmt = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd-MMM-uuuu");
fmt.withLocale(Locale.US);
LocalDate d = LocalDate.parse(dateStr, fmt);

but it throws an exception: DateTimeParseException "Text '27-Sep-2017' could not be parsed at index 3".

It seems to expect Sept not Sep.
I had assumed that MMM meant a 3-letter date, which seems to work for the other 11 months.

Is there a format pattern that works for Sep too?

>Solution :

fmt.withLocale(Locale.US); doesn’t set the local date on fmt. Instead, it returns a new DateTimeFormatter with that locale. You can either set the locale directly from the ofPattern method:

DateTimeFormatter fmt = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd-MMM-yyyy", Locale.US);

Or, dirtier

String dateStr = "27-Sep-2017";
DateTimeFormatter fmt = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd-MMM-uuuu");
fmt = fmt.withLocale(Locale.US); // NOTICE HERE: reassigning fmt
LocalDate d = LocalDate.parse(dateStr, fmt);