How to check validity of Date String?

Question

In my project I need to check if a date string evaluates to a proper Date object. I\'ve decided to allow yyyy-MM-dd, and Date formats [(year, month, date) and (year, month,

Answer 1

Just to show the final outcome, thanks to Csaba_H and Steve Kuo.

private Date parseDate(String date){

    SimpleDateFormat[] possibleFormats = new SimpleDateFormat[] {
        new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd"),
        new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy,MM,dd"),
        new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy,MM,dd,HH,mm") };

    Date retVal = null;
    for (SimpleDateFormat f: possibleFormats) {
        f.setLenient(false);
        try {
            retVal = f.parse(date);
        } catch (ParseException e) {}
    }
    return retVal;
}