The Java Tutorials have been written for JDK 8. Examples and practices described in this page don't take advantage of improvements introduced in later releases and might use technology no longer available.
See Dev.java for updated tutorials taking advantage of the latest releases.
See Java Language Changes for a summary of updated language features in Java SE 9 and subsequent releases.
See JDK Release Notes for information about new features, enhancements, and removed or deprecated options for all JDK releases.

Lesson: Formatting

This lesson explains how to format numbers, currencies, dates, times, and text messages. Because end users can see these data elements, their format must conform to various cultural conventions. Following the examples in this lesson will teach you how to:

• Format data elements in a locale-sensitive manner
• Keep your code locale-independent
• Avoid the need to write formatting routines for specific locales

Numbers and Currencies

This section explains how to use the NumberFormat, DecimalFormat, and DecimalFormatSymbols classes.

Dates and Times

This section focuses on the DateFormat, SimpleDateFormat, and DateFormatSymbols classes.

Messages

This section shows how the MessageFormat and ChoiceFormat classes can help you solve some of the problems you might encounter when formatting text messages.