SimpleDateFormat pattern to produce 2002-01-02T09:30:47-05:00

This was my original solution:

  private static SimpleDateFormat dateFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ");
   
  /**
   * Convert date into a formatted string
   */
  public static String formatToString(Date dateToFormat) {
    StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer(dateFormatter.format(dateToFormat));
   
    // We have to manually insert a colon
    // i.e 2002-01-02T09:30:47-0500 becomes 2002-01-02T09:30:47-05:00
    buffer.insert(buffer.length() - 2, ':');
   
    return buffer.toString();
  }

I was hoping there was another solution though :)

>>I was hoping there was another solution though :)

What sort of thing did you have in mind?

You *could* do it in one line if that's the sort of thing you meant...

Well looking at the http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html#timezone javadocs.

I was thinking there's perhaps a way of using the z character in such a way that it produces the desired result.

>>I was thinking there's perhaps a way of using the z character in such a way that it produces the desired result.

No, because unfortunately the zone info is monolithic as opposed to atomic.

I guess in that case it might be feasible to extend the SimpleDateFormat class and implement one's own zoning logic ... even if it means simply adding a colon to a string :)

Yes. You'd get the offset in milliseconds and format as you wish