I am trying to output the current date format into:

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");, but it is outputting like this:

Fri Dec 02 14:03:59 AEST 2016

Here is my code:

JDateChooser datePurchased = new JDateChooser();

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-mm-yyyy");

Date newDate = new Date();

datePurchased.setDate(newDate);

I am now printing the result like this:

System.out.println(newDate.toString());

But this does not print out what I want, as per above.

My goal output is: 02/12/2016, how do I go about doing this, I've tried looking around but I cannot find the likes to solve my problem.

Thank you in advance.

The first part is simple enough, a Date is a representation in epoch time and doesn't have a modifiable format. Instead, you format it when you want to display it (or otherwise obtain a String representation). Additionally, you need M for months (m is minutes) and if you want / use that instead of -. For example,

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");

Date newDate = new Date();

System.out.println(dateFormat.format(newDate));

You are printing the date but no using the formatter, you need to do:

String pattern  = "dd-MM-yyyy";

DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern);

System.out.println(formatter.format(newDate));

edit:

if your goal output is: 02/12/2016
then in the pattern in the format incorrect, you will need to use slash and not hyphens

use instead dd/mm/yyyy

Use this simple code:

  bill_date.setDateFormatString("yyyy-MM-dd");

In here bill_date is instance of the JDateChooser.