timezone - Unable to obtain ZonedDateTime from TemporalAccessor using DateTimeFormatter and ZonedDateTime in Java 8

Question

I recently moved to Java 8 to, hopefully, deal with local and zoned times more easily.

However, I'm facing an, in my opinion, simple problem when parsing a simple date.

public static ZonedDateTime convertirAFecha(String fecha) throws Exception {
    DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern(
            ConstantesFechas.FORMATO_DIA).withZone(
            obtenerZonaHorariaServidor());

    ZonedDateTime resultado = ZonedDateTime.parse(fecha, formatter);
    return resultado;
}

In my case:

• fecha is '15/06/2014'
• ConstantesFechas.FORMATO_DIA is 'dd/MM/yyyy'
• obtenerZonaHorariaServidor returns ZoneId.systemDefault()

So, this is a simple example. However, the parse throws this exception:

java.time.format.DateTimeParseException: Text '15/06/2014' could not be parsed: Unable to obtain ZonedDateTime from TemporalAccessor: {},ISO resolved to 2014-06-15 of type java.time.format.Parsed

Any tips? I've been trying different combinations of parsing and using TemporalAccesor, but without any luck so far.

Answer 1

This does not work because your input (and your Formatter) do not have time zone information. A simple way is to parse your date as a LocalDate first (without time or time zone information) then create a ZonedDateTime:

public static ZonedDateTime convertirAFecha(String fecha) {
  DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd/MM/yyyy");
  LocalDate date = LocalDate.parse(fecha, formatter);

  ZonedDateTime resultado = date.atStartOfDay(ZoneId.systemDefault());
  return resultado;
}