This is the concrete Format subclass used by DateFormat to handle the formatting and parsing of dates. Most applications should not use this class directly; instead, they should obtain a localized DateFormat object by calling one of the static methods of DateFormat.

SimpleDateFormat formats dates and times according to a pattern, which specifies the positions of the various fields of the date, and a DateFormatSymbols object, which specifies important auxiliary data, such as the names of months. Applications that require highly customized date or time formatting can create a custom SimpleDateFormat object by specifying the desired pattern. This creates a SimpleDateFormat object that uses the DateFormatSymbols object for the default locale. You may also specify an locale explicitly, to use the DateFormatSymbols object for that locale. You can even provide an explicit DateFormatSymbols object of your own if you need to format dates and times for an unsupported locale.

You can use the applyPattern( ) method of a SimpleDateFormat to change the formatting pattern used by the object. The syntax of this pattern is described in the following table. Any characters in the format string that do not appear in this table appear literally in the formatted date.

Figure 15-16. java.text.SimpleDateFormat

public class SimpleDateFormat extends DateFormat {
// Public Constructors
     public SimpleDateFormat( );  
     public SimpleDateFormat(String pattern);  
     public SimpleDateFormat(String pattern, java.util.Locale locale);  
     public SimpleDateFormat(String pattern, DateFormatSymbols formatSymbols);  
// Public Instance Methods
     public void applyLocalizedPattern(String pattern);  
     public void applyPattern(String pattern);  
1.2  public java.util.Date get2DigitYearStart( );  
     public DateFormatSymbols getDateFormatSymbols( );  
1.2  public void set2DigitYearStart(java.util.Date startDate);  
     public void setDateFormatSymbols(DateFormatSymbols newFormatSymbols);  
     public String toLocalizedPattern( );  
     public String toPattern( );  
// Public Methods Overriding DateFormat
     public Object clone( );  
     public boolean equals(Object obj);  
     public StringBuffer format(java.util.Date date, StringBuffer toAppendTo, 
        FieldPosition pos);  
     public int hashCode( );  
     public java.util.Date parse(String text, ParsePosition pos);  
// Public Methods Overriding Format
1.4  public AttributedCharacterIterator formatToCharacterIterator(Object obj);  
}