How to parse dates in multiple formats using SimpleDateFormat

Question

I am trying to parse some dates that are coming out of a document. It would appear users have entered these dates in a similar but not exact format.

here are the for

Answer 1

Implemented the same in scala, Please help urself with converting to Java, the core logic and functions used stays the same.

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat
import org.apache.commons.lang.time.DateUtils

object MultiDataFormat {
  def main(args: Array[String]) {

val dates =Array("2015-10-31","26/12/2015","19-10-2016")

val possibleDateFormats:Array[String] = Array("yyyy-MM-dd","dd/MM/yyyy","dd-MM-yyyy")

val sdf =  new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd") //change it as per the requirement
  for (date<-dates) {
    val outputDate = DateUtils.parseDateStrictly(date, possibleDateFormats)
    System.out.println("inputDate ==> " + date + ", outputDate ==> " +outputDate + " " + sdf.format(outputDate) )
  }
}

}