getDay() method to return day of the week for a given date not works

Question

I'm trying to complete the task named Java Date and Time on HackerRank.

Task

You are given a date. You just need to write the method, getDay, which returns the day on that date.For example, if you are given the date, August 14th 2017, the method should return MONDAY as the day on that date.

I tried my best to do the task but I get either the null result or NullPointerException error. I wonder where do I do wrong. Below is my code:

Thanks in advance!

My Code:

import java.util.*;

public class Solution {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
        String month = in.next();
        String day = in.next();
        String year = in.next();

        System.out.println(getDay(day, month, year));
    }

    public static String getDay(String day, String month, String year) {
        Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
        cal.set(Integer.valueOf(year), (Integer.valueOf(month) - 1), Integer.valueOf(day));
        return cal.getDisplayName(cal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK), Calendar.LONG, Locale.getDefault());
    }
}

Answer 1

Your return is off; you don't want cal.get in the first column of cal.getDisplayName. Currently, I get the month name with your code. Change that to

return cal.getDisplayName(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK, Calendar.LONG, Locale.getDefault());

And call it like

public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println(getDay("14", "8", "2017"));
}

And I get (as expected)

Monday

In new code, I would prefer the new classes in java.time (Java 8+), and a DateTimeFormatter - like,

public static String getDay(String day, String month, String year) {
    int y = Integer.parseInt(year), m = Integer.parseInt(month), d = Integer.parseInt(day);
    return java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("EEEE")
            .format(LocalDate.of(y, m, d));
}

Answer 2

java.time.LocalDate

The modern approach uses the java.time classes.

1. Import java.time.* to access LocalDate & DayOfWeek classes.
2. Write getDay method which should be static because it is called in main method.
3. Retrieve localDate by using of method which takes 3 arguments in "int" format.
4. convert the getDay method arguments in int format.
5. finally retrieve name of that day using getDayOfWeek method.

There is one video on this challenge. Java Date and Time Hackerrank

LocalDate                 // Represent a date-only value, without time-of-day and without time zone.
.of( 2018 , 1 , 23 )      // Pass year-month-day, 1-12 for January-December. 
.getDayOfWeek()           // Obtain a `DayOfWeek` enum object.
.getDisplayName(          // Automatically localize the name of the day-of-week.
    TextStyle.FULL ,      // How long or abbreviated.
    Locale.US             // Or Locale.CANADA_FRENCH or so on.
)                         // Returns `String` such as `Monday` or `lundi`. 

For Java 6 & 7, see the ThreeTen-Backport project. For earlier Android, see the ThreeTenABP project.

Answer 3

if you want to use LocalDate, you can use it this way

 import java.time.LocalDate;

 public static String getDay(int month, int day, int year) {

    return LocalDate.of(year, month, day).getDayOfWeek().name();

    }

Answer 4

Formatting data and time using java.util date and calendar as follows, where it needed to handle an exception with java.text.SimpleDateFormat in java 7.

public static void main(String[] args){
    String inputDateStr = String.format("%s/%s/%s", 23, 04, 1995);
    Date inputDate = null;
    try {
        inputDate = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy").parse(inputDateStr);
    } catch (ParseException ex) {
        Logger.getLogger(JavaApplication28.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
    }
    Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
    calendar.setTime(inputDate);
    String dayOfWeek = calendar.getDisplayName(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK, Calendar.LONG, Locale.US).toUpperCase();
    System.out.println(dayOfWeek);

}

Formatting date and time using java.time classes in java 8 as follows and it is immutable and thread-safe.

import java.time.LocalDateTime; 
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter; 

public class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    LocalDateTime dateObj = LocalDateTime.now();
    System.out.println("Before formatting: " + dateObj);
    DateTimeFormatter formatObj = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss");

    String formattedDate = dateObj.format(formatObj);
    System.out.println("After formatting: " + formattedDate);
  }
}

Answer 5

    public static String getDay(int month, int day, int year) {
   String  res= java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("EEEE")
        .format(java.time.LocalDate.of(year, month, day));
   return res;    }

must use java.time.LocalDate, if u will use direct LocalDate its show compile time error i.e cannot find symbol, so plz use java.time.

Answer 6

You can use new Java8 DateTime API.

public static String getDay(int day, int month, int year) 
{
    LocalDate dt=LocalDate.of(year, month, day);
    System.out.println("day: " + dt.getDayOfWeek().toString());
    return dt.getDayOfWeek().toString();
}

A LocalDate is a date without time of day, so fine for our purpose. The of factory method constructs the date that we want. Contrary to the Calendar class used in the question it numbers the months sanely from 1 for January through 12 for December. A LocalDate has a getter for day of week. It returns a constant from the DayOfWeek enum whose toString method gives us a nice readable string such as MONDAY, again in contrast to what we get from Calendar.

Answer 7

public static String findDay(int month, int day, int year) {
 Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
    cal.set(year, (month - 1), day);
    String dayOfWeek = cal.getDisplayName(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK, Calendar.LONG, Locale.getDefault());
    return dayOfWeek.toUpperCase();
}

Answer 8

public static String findDay(int month, int day, int year) {
     Calendar rightNow = Calendar.getInstance();
        rightNow.set(year, month-1, day);;
        switch(rightNow.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK)) {
            case Calendar.SUNDAY:
                return "SUNDAY";
            case Calendar.MONDAY:
                return "MONDAY";
            case Calendar.TUESDAY:
                return "TUEDAY";
            case Calendar.WEDNESDAY:
                return "WEDNESDAY";
            case Calendar.THURSDAY:
                return "THURSDAY";
            case Calendar.FRIDAY:
                return "FRIDAY";
            case Calendar.SATURDAY:
                return "SATURDAY";            
   
}

}