How to parse the “GMT+hours:minutes” or “GMT-hours:minutes” using SimpleDateFormat in Java (Android)

Question

For example, I want to parse the string below:

Tue Sep 28 18:02:24 GMT+08:00 2010

And I use the pattern for the SimpleDateFormat:

new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzzzzzzzz yyyy");

But I keep getting the ParseException. How to fix this?

Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

use one z, as in the examples here

new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss z yyyy");

Answer 2

Alright, I found the solution here.

new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss z yyyy", Locale.ENGLISH);

But what's the difference between using 'z' and 'Z' here? Are they the same?

Answer 3

Even if you have many z's it work.