I have the following scenario :
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(\"dd/MM/yyyy\");
System.out.println(dateFormat.parse(\"31/05/2011\"));
If you want to simply output a date, just use the following:
System.out.printf("Date: %1$te/%1$tm/%1$tY at %1$tH:%1$tM:%1$tS%n", new Date());
As seen here. Or if you want to get the value into a String (for SQL building, for example) you can use:
String formattedDate = String.format("%1$te/%1$tm/%1$tY", new Date());
You can also customize your output by following the Java API on Date/Time conversions.