title: Java date format - including additional characters
body: <p>Is there an equivalent to php date() style formatting in Java? I mean, in php I can backslash-escape characters to have them treated literally. I.e. <strong>yyyy \y\e\a\r</strong> would become <strong>2010 year</strong>. I did not find anything similar in Java, all examples deal only with built-in date formats. </p>
  
  <p>In particular, I deal with <a href="http://www.toedter.com/en/jcalendar/index.html" rel="noreferrer">JCalendar</a> date pickers and their <strong>dateFormatString</strong> property.</p>
  
  <p>I need it because in my locale it is required to write all sorts of additional stuff in date format, like d. (for day) after days part, m. (for years) after years part and so on. At the worst case I could use string replace or regexp but maybe there's a simpler way? Thanks in advance!</p>