Dealing with 'Z' Literal in SimpleDateFormat Date Parsing

In the realm of date parsing, the 'Z' literal holds a special significance. It serves as a marker indicating that the time specified uses UTC as the reference point. However, parsing a date with this literal using SimpleDateFormat can pose challenges for some specific patterns.

As you have encountered, SimpleDateFormat struggles to interpret this format using patterns like "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss" and its variants. While you can manually set the TimeZone on the SimpleDateFormat, this should not be a necessary measure.

The solution lies in employing a pattern that explicitly handles the 'Z' literal. In Java 7 and later, the appropriate pattern to use is "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssX". This pattern will recognize the 'Z' literal as a timezone offset and appropriately parse the date in UTC format.

Therefore, to successfully parse the date "2010-04-05T17:16:00Z", you should utilize the following pattern:

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssX");