Calendar getDisplayName() JDK 6.0 vs JDK 1.5.0

If you have somehow used jdk6.0 while developing your application that uses Calendar API of java.util.Calendar, and have used getDisplayName method to extract the display names for fields of the calendar, specific to your desired style and locale, and then had to compile your application with jdk1.5.0 only to realize that compiler spits swear words at you...Here is quick fix for you!

This is what you did in jdk6.0:

//get your application locale
Locale userLocale = getContext().getLocale();

//define a calendar
Calendar calendarInstance = Calendar.getInstance();

//Extract the month name in SHORT format (viz. "Jan","Feb" etc.) for the context locale.
calendarInstance.getDisplayName(calendarInstance.get(Calendar.MONTH),Calendar.SHORT,userLocale);


Here is what you can do to achieve the same getDisplayName functionality in jdk 5.0:

//import the following class
import java.text.DateFormatSymbols;

//declare variable.
DateFormatSymbols dateFormatSymbols = new DateFormatSymbols();

//Get the short names for months in a Calendar
String[] months = dateFormatSymbols.getShortMonths();

//Use the month field of Calendar to fetch the short name of month for cell label.
months[calendarInstance.get(Calendar.MONTH)];



Once you acquire the SHORT name for the field, you can use it for your labels, or column headers etc. based on where you require it.

Ideally, you shouldn't have to fall back on the previous version of jdk, yet sometimes the project requirements can't be altered even for better things in life.

Hope this tip helps!