Cookbooks
Kotlin
Chapter 7. Dates and Times
Parsing a date from a string

Kotlin:
Parsing a date from a string

How to:

Kotlin supports date parsing through the java.time package, introduced in Java 8. Here’s a simple approach using LocalDateTime and a specific pattern:

import java.time.LocalDateTime
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter

fun parseDateFromString(dateString: String): LocalDateTime {
    val formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss")
    return LocalDateTime.parse(dateString, formatter)
}

fun main() {
    val dateString = "2023-04-01 12:00:00"
    val date = parseDateFromString(dateString)
    println(date)  // Output: 2023-04-01T12:00
}

For more flexibility, or to handle dates from external sources like APIs, you might use a third-party library such as Joda-Time (though it’s less common now with java.time being robust). However, sticking with the modern approach provided by the JDK is preferred for most Kotlin applications.

To parse a date in Kotlin without using third-party libraries, you can also make use of the SimpleDateFormat class for versions before Java 8 or Android API levels lacking java.time support:

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat

fun parseDateUsingSimpleDateFormat(dateString: String): java.util.Date {
    val formatter = SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss")
    return formatter.parse(dateString)
}

fun main() {
    val dateString = "2023-04-01 12:00:00"
    val date = parseDateUsingSimpleDateFormat(dateString)
    println(date)  // Output will vary based on your timezone, e.g., Sat Apr 01 12:00:00 GMT 2023
}

Remember to always set the timezone if working with SimpleDateFormat to avoid unexpected offsets in parsed dates.

Getting the current date