How to convert Date string to java Date?

Question

Im having difficulty converting the following date string "2014-07-10T11:31:35" to a java Date object in android.

so Date date = new Date("2014-07-10T11:31:35"); returns null, which causes a null reference exception

public class DateUtil {

    public static String FromIsoString(String datestring)
    {
        String formattedDateString = "";
        try {
            if (!datestring.isEmpty()) {

                Date date = new Date(date string);//-->>>> returns null 
                String format = "dd/MM/yyyy";
                Locale locale = Locale.ENGLISH;
                formattedDateString = FromIsoString(date, format, locale);
            }
        }
        catch(Exception ex)
        {
            Log.e(ex.getLocalizedMessage(),"FromUtcString");
        }
        return formattedDateString;
    }


    public static  String FromIsoString(Date date, String format, Locale locale){
        String dateString = null;
        try
        {

            dateString = new SimpleDateFormat(format, locale).format(date);

        }catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Log.e(ex.getLocalizedMessage(),"FromString");
        }
        return dateString;
    }
}

Answer 1

/**
 * Format date with specified Date format
 * @param dateString
 * @param inFormat format of input date
 * @param outFormat format of result date
 * @return dateString
 */
public static String formatDate(String dateString, String inFormat, String outFormat){
    DateFormat inFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat(inFormat);
    inFormatter.setLenient(false);
    DateFormat outFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat(outFormat);

    Date date = null;
    try {
        date = inFormatter.parse(dateString);
    } catch (ParseException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        return "";
    }

    return outFormatter.format(date);
}

and call it like formatDate("2014-07-10T11:31:35"", inFormat, outFormat)

where inFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss" and outFormat = "dd/MM/yyyy"