Date types in JDBC

Converting a date to a string

For the purposes of this page, a large date is defined as a date with a year that exceeds 9999.

If your database doesn't contain any large dates, then you can reliably call toString() to convert the dates to strings.

Otherwise, if your database contains large dates, you should use java.text.SimpleDateFormat and its format() method:

1. Define a String format with java.text.SimpleDateFormat. The number of characters in yyyy in the format defines the minimum number of characters to use in the date.

2. Call SimpleDateFormat.format() to convert the java.sql.Date object to a String.

Examples

For example, the following method returns a string when passed a java.sql.Date object as an argument. Here, the year part of the format, YYYY indicates that this format is compatible with all dates with at least four characters in its year.

#import java.sql.Date;

private String convertDate (Date date) {
    SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat ("yyyy-MM-dd");
    return dateFormat.format (date);
}