How to convert string date to long (or Unix date)?

Question

I'm having difficulty in converting a user supplied date in the format mm/dd/yyyy to a long format such as 1035462807000. Since it's being entered by the user I can't just use the current system date. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Dave

Answer 1

Hi man, tsith Gave a good beggining, why dont you try the next code
import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.util.Date;
public class DateToUnix{
    public static void main(String args[]){
        getDateAsLong();
    public static void getDateAsLong(){
        String sStartDate = "12/01/2002";
        Date theDate;
        DateFormat sdf= new SimpleDateFormat("MM/DD/yyyy" );
        try {
            theDate = sdf.parse( sStartDate );
        }catch(ParseException e ){
            theDate = new Date();
        System.out.println( "Converted Start Date:" + theDate.getTime());
}No mather how you get a Date object, the value you are looking for is a long, and you can get it from such object with the getTime() method.
Take a look at the Java API @ [http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/docs/api/java/util/Date.html#getTime()]