Joda-Time DateTime formatting based on locale

Question

I receive a string date from another system and I know the locale of that date (also available from the other system). I want to convert this String into a Joda-Time DateTime object without explicitly specifying the target pattern.

So for example, I want to convert this String "09/29/2014" into a date object using the locale only and not by hard coding the date format to "mm/dd/yyyy". I cant hard code the format as this will vary depending on the local of the date I receive.

Answer 1

String localizedCalendarDate = DateTimeFormat.shortDate().print(new LocalDate(2014, 9, 29));
// uses in Germany: dd.MM.yyyy
// but uses in US: MM/dd/yyyy

LocalDate date =
  DateTimeFormat.mediumDate().withLocale(Locale.US).parseLocalDate("09/29/2014");
DateTime dt = date.toDateTimeAtStartOfDay(DateTimeZone.forID("America/Los_Angeles"));

As you can see, you will also need to know the clock time (= start of day in example) and time zone (US-California in example) in order to convert a parsed date to a global timestamp like DateTime.