Unexpected java SimpleDateFormat parse exception

Question

I can't understand why this few lines

    Date submissionT;
    SimpleDateFormat tempDate = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM d HH:mm:ss z yyyy");

    public time_print(String time) {
        try {
          submissionT=tempDate.parse(time);
        }
        catch (Exception e) {     
          System.out.println(e.toString() + ", " + time);
        }

    }

Cause exceptions and print out

    java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "Tue Mar 31 06:09:00 CEST 2009", Tue Mar 31 06:09:00 CEST 2009

... while the "unparsable" time is compliant with the format string i've passed to SimpleDateFormat().. Any Idea?

Solution

It is a Locale issue. Use:

sdf = SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM d HH:mm:ss z yyyy", Locale.US);

Comments

[NikolaDjokic]

It only works because of your default Locale matches the expected one.

[golimar]

Would be nice if the exception message was not just "Unparseable date" but also the position in the String where it failed...