Time format used in .ics file?

Question

I am creating an .ics file in Java, and I need to know what date and time format to use.

Here is the current format of my ics file:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20120901T180000
DTEND:20120901T183000
SUMMARY:my birthday
LOCATION:Bangalore
DESCRIPTION:Every one is welcome..!! time to party
PRIORITY:3
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

I used ISO_DATETIME_TIME_ZONE_FORMAT to convert my date to the required format, but it returned 2012-09-01T18:00:00+00:00

What is the date format used in the DTSTART and DTEND values? Specifically, how can I format this properly in Java?

Solution

With Java you could use

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd'T'HHmmss");

See more at iCalendar RFC 5545

Comments

[Admin]

Thank you, but i had a look at that, and it seemed much simpler to just write the ics file onto an outputsteam and download it. also im trying to avoid using a third-party library, i just need to know which format the date and time should be parsed in.

[smooth reggae]

A little googling will get you the answer; one the results says The iCal Date format is in the form of yyyymmddThhmmss; @roger-lindsjo's note above has the pattern you can use with SimpleDateFormat to parse it