Demonstrates how to encode and decode datetime strings in ISO format, such that they can be stored in a SQL database.

DateUtil.java

public final class DateUtil {

  private DateUtil() {
  }

  public static String toIsoString( Date aDate ) {
    SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat( "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ" );
    return simpleDateFormat.format( aDate );
  }

  public static Timestamp fromIsoString( String aDate ) {
    SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat( "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ" );

    try {
      Date parse = simpleDateFormat.parse( aDate );
      return new Timestamp( parse.getTime() );
    } catch ( ParseException aException ) {
      aException.printStackTrace();
      return null;
    }
  }

  public static Timestamp getCurrentDateTime() {
    return new Timestamp( System.currentTimeMillis() );
  }
  
}

DateUtilTest.java

public class DateUtilTest {

  @Test
  public void testDateParsing() throws Exception {
    String inputDate = "2013-06-24T15:45:00+0300";
    Timestamp parsedDate = DateUtil.fromIsoString( inputDate );
    String outputDate = DateUtil.toIsoString( parsedDate );

    assertEquals( inputDate, outputDate );
  }

}