date - Java: Convert String to TimeStamp

Question

I have an issue while I try to convert a String to a TimeStamp. I have an array that has the date in the format of yyyy-MM-dd and I want to change in the format of yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS. So, I use this code:

final String OLD_FORMAT = "yyyy-MM-dd";
final String NEW_FORMAT = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS";
String oldDateString = createdArray[k];
String newDateString;

DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat(OLD_FORMAT);
Date d = formatter.parse(oldDateString);
((SimpleDateFormat) formatter).applyPattern(NEW_FORMAT);
newDateString = formatter.format(d);
System.out.println(newDateString);

Timestamp ts = Timestamp.valueOf(newDateString);
System.out.println(ts);

and I get the following result.

2009-10-20 00:00:00.000

2009-10-20 00:00:00.0

but when I try to simply do

String text = "2011-10-02 18:48:05.123";
ts = Timestamp.valueOf(text);
System.out.println(ts);

I get the right result:

2011-10-02 18:48:05.123

Do u know what I might be doing wrong? Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

Follow these steps for a correct result:

try {
    SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss.SSS");
    Date parsedDate = dateFormat.parse(yourString);
    Timestamp timestamp = new java.sql.Timestamp(parsedDate.getTime());
} catch(Exception e) { //this generic but you can control another types of exception
    // look the origin of excption 
}

Please note that .parse(String) might throw a ParseException.