Custom DateFormats mmm:ss

Question

Is there a way to format a date to have mmm:ss instead of hh:mm:ss? Basically, 7:15:28 should show up instead as 435:28 instead.

The SimpleDateFormat class does not support this format is there one that does or will I have to implement a variation myself?

Answer 1

You'll have to implement it yourself, but you should bear in mind that implementing a Formatter is not a simple task, as it has many l10n considerations.

Answer 2

You could use Joda Time to build a custom formatter. With the DateTimeFormatterBuilder class you could at least show the minutes of a day:

import org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormatterBuilder;

DateTimeFormatter customFormat = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
      .appendMinuteOfDay(1)
      .appendLiteral(':')
      .appendSecondOfMinute(2)
      .toFormatter();
System.out.println(customFormat.print(System.currentTimeMillis()));

Answer 3

If all you want to do is format a Date into the format you specified (with no other parts of the Date included) you can just do it very simply:

   public String format(Date date) {      
      Calendar cal = new GregorianCalendar();
      cal.setTime(date);
      return cal.get(Calendar.HOUR) * 60 + cal.get(Calendar.MINUTE) + ":" + cal.get(Calendar.SECOND);      
   }