Convert Date String to UTC format

Question

I have a Date String which I am getting back from an API. The date is in this format.

2018-10-15T17:52:00Z

Now, I want to convert this string to UTC date format. This is the code I use for it,

private static final String DATE_FORMAT = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'";


 try {
        String expiryDateString = "2018-10-15T17:52:00Z";
        final SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat(DATE_FORMAT,Locale.US);
        formatter.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
        return formatter.parse(expiryDateString);
     } catch (final ParseException e) {
            return null;
     }

This method is returning the date as

Mon Oct 15 13:52:00 EDT 2018

I cannot use Java 8 functions. is there any way to convert string to UTC date time without using Java 8 methods?

Solution

Mon Oct 15 13:52:00 EDT 2018

is the result of date.toString() - Date class.

The date is parsed correctly, just displayed differently. If you want to check that the parsing is correct you can check like this:

String expiryDateString = "2018-10-15T17:52:00Z";
final SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'", Locale.US);
formatter.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
Date date = formatter.parse(expiryDateString);
assertEquals(expiryDateString, formatter.format(date));