The previous problem contains some flavors of formatting date and time via SimpleDateFormat.format() and DateTimeFormatter.format(). In order to define format patterns, the developer must be aware of the format pattern syntax. In other words, the developer must be aware of the set of symbols that are used by the Java date-time API in order to recognize a valid format pattern.

Most of the symbols are common to SimpleDateFormat (before JDK 8) and to DateTimeFormatter (starting with JDK 8). The following table lists the most common symbols—the complete list is available in the JDK documentation:

Some format pattern examples are available in the following table:

Before JDK 8, a format pattern can be applied via SimpleDateFormat:

// yyyy-MM-dd
Date date = new Date();
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
String stringDate = formatter.format(date);

Starting with JDK 8, a format pattern can be applied via DateTimeFormatter:

• For LocalDate (date without a time zone in the ISO-8601 calendar system):

// yyyy-MM-dd
LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatterLocalDate 
  = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd");
String stringLD = formatterLocalDate.format(localDate);

// or shortly
String stringLD = LocalDate.now()
  .format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd"));

• For LocalTime (time without a time zone in the ISO-8601 calendar system):

// HH:mm:ss
LocalTime localTime = LocalTime.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatterLocalTime 
  = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("HH:mm:ss");
String stringLT 
  = formatterLocalTime.format(localTime);

// or shortly
String stringLT = LocalTime.now()
  .format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("HH:mm:ss"));

• For LocalDateTime (date-time without a time zone in the ISO-8601 calendar system):

// yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss
LocalDateTime localDateTime = LocalDateTime.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatterLocalDateTime 
  = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
String stringLDT 
  = formatterLocalDateTime.format(localDateTime);

// or shortly
String stringLDT = LocalDateTime.now()
  .format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"));

• For ZonedDateTime (date-time with a time zone in the ISO-8601 calendar system):

// E MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSSZ
ZonedDateTime zonedDateTime = ZonedDateTime.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatterZonedDateTime 
  = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("E MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSSZ");
String stringZDT 
  = formatterZonedDateTime.format(zonedDateTime);

// or shortly
String stringZDT = ZonedDateTime.now()
  .format(DateTimeFormatter
    .ofPattern("E MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSSZ"));

• For OffsetDateTime (date-time with an offset from UTC/GMT in the ISO-8601 calendar system):

// E MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSSZ
OffsetDateTime offsetDateTime = OffsetDateTime.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatterOffsetDateTime 
  = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("E MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSSZ");
String odt1 = formatterOffsetDateTime.format(offsetDateTime);

// or shortly
String odt2 = OffsetDateTime.now()
  .format(DateTimeFormatter
    .ofPattern("E MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSSZ"));

• For OffsetTime (time with an offset from UTC/GMT in the ISO-8601 calendar system):

// HH:mm:ss,Z
OffsetTime offsetTime = OffsetTime.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatterOffsetTime 
  = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("HH:mm:ss,Z");
String ot1 = formatterOffsetTime.format(offsetTime);

// or shortly
String ot2 = OffsetTime.now()
  .format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("HH:mm:ss,Z"));