In this post, we will see a few examples of how to convert String to LocalDate in Java.

Some of the examples have been done using Lombok.

String in ISO_LOCAL_DATE

When the string is in ISO_LOCAL_DATE, no parsing is necessary, and it can be converted directly.

@Slf4j
public class IsoLocalDateExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        String date = "1983-05-10";

        LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.parse(date);

        log.debug(localDate.toString());

    }
}

OUTPUT:
1983-05-10

String with format

When we are going to use a date with a specific format, the type of date format must be defined:

Slf4j
public class StringDateFormatExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd/MM/yyyy");

        String date = "05/10/1983";

        LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.parse(date, formatter);

        log.debug(localDate.toString());

        log.debug("Date is es: " + formatter.format(localDate).toString());

    }
}

Output:
2016-08-16
Date is: 16/08/2016

String with Month in Letter and Locale

In the following example, we will transform a String in which the Month comes with a letter and the Spanish Locale. In this case, we have to establish that the DateTimeFormatter has the Locale.US by default to avoid exceptions.

@Slf4j
public class StringDateMonthLocaleExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Locale.setDefault(Locale.ES);

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

        String date = "01-Aug-1983";

        LocalDate date = LocalDate.parse(date, dateFormatter);

        log.debug(date.toString()); 

        log.debug(dateFormatter.format(date).toString()); 

    }
}

Output:
1983-08-01 //ISO_LOCALDATE
01-Aug-1983

String with abbreviated Weekday and Month

We must format a string with abbreviated Month and Weekday, both in English, as follows when we receive it:

@Slf4j
public class StringDateMonthWeekExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("E, MMM d yyyy", Locale.US);

        String stringDate = "Friday, Apr 01 1983";

        LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.parse(stringDate, formatter);

        log.debug(localDate.toString());

        log.debug(formatter.format(localDate).toString());

    }
}

Output:
1983-04-01
Mon, Apr 1 1983

Convert String to LocalDateTime

In the following example, we will convert a String with LocalDateTime format to LocalDate. The difference with the previous examples is that now, we will indicate the time.

@Slf4j
public class StringToLocalDateTime {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        DateTimeFormatter dateFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("EEEE, MMM d, yyyy hh:mm:ss a", Locale.US);

        String stringDate = "Friday, Apr 1, 1983 10:01:00 AM";

        LocalDateTime localDateTime = LocalDateTime.parse(stringDate, dateFormatter);

        log.debug(localDateTime.toString());

        log.debug(dateFormatter.format(localDateTime).toString());

    }
}

Output:
1983-04-1T10:01:00
Friday, Apr 1, 1983 10:01:00 AM

Convert String with LocalDateTime format to LocalDate

Starting from the previous example, we are going to convert the input String of type LocalDateTime to LocalDate. To do this, we will first transform it to LocalDateTime, as in the previous example, and then we will perform its transformation to LocalDate.

@Slf4j
public class StringToLocalDateTimeToLocalDate {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        DateTimeFormatter dateFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("EEEE, MMM d, yyyy hh:mm:ss a", Locale.US);

        String stringDate = "Friday, Apr 1, 1983 10:01:00 AM";

        LocalDateTime localDateTime = LocalDateTime.parse(stringDate, dateFormatter);

        log.debug(localDateTime.toString());

        log.debug(dateFormatter.format(localDateTime).toString());

        log.debug(dateFormatter.format(localDateTime).toLocalDate().toString());

        log.debug(localDateTime.toLocalDate().toString());
    }
}

Output:
1983-04-1T10:01:00
Friday, Apr 1, 1983 10:01:00 AM

Friday, Apr 1, 1983
1983-04-1

Exception with LocalDate

Now we are going to provoke an exception in the transformation of a date, we are going to try to transform a date that has day 33. To do this, we will make use of the DateTimeParseException exception:

@Slf4j
public class LocalDateExceptionExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        try {
           DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd/MM/yyyy");

           String date = "33/10/1983";

           LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.parse(date, formatter);

        } catch (DateTimeParseException e) {
            log.error("Error parsing the date");
        }

    }

}

Conclusión

In this article, we have seen different examples of how to convert String to LocalDate in Java, which will be very useful to work with different LocalDate formats.

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