Get Day of Week from Date Object in Java

To get the day of the week from a java.util.Date object, we can use the java.text.SimpleDateFormat class. First, create a Date object. Next, create a SimpleDateFormat instance using the getDateInstance() method, passing the String "E" or "EEEE" as the argument. Get the day of the week as a String using the format() method passing in the java.util.Date object. To get the weekday in numerical format, we can use the java.util.Calendar object's get method passing in Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK.

Get Day of Week from Date in Java - Example Code

//
// The following example code demonstrates how to
// print out the Day of the Week from a Date object.
//
public class GetDayFromDate {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Date now = new Date();

        SimpleDateFormat simpleDateformat = new SimpleDateFormat("E"); // the day of the week abbreviated
        System.out.println(simpleDateformat.format(now));

        simpleDateformat = new SimpleDateFormat("EEEE"); // the day of the week spelled out completely
        System.out.println(simpleDateformat.format(now));

        Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
        calendar.setTime(now);
        System.out.println(calendar.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK)); // the day of the week in numerical format

    }
}

Here is the output of the example code:

Wed
Wednesday
4