Generic way to parse dates in Java

Question

What is the best way to parse dates in Java ? Is there any built in way to parse strings such as \"18 Jul 2011\" , \"Jul 18, 2011\", \"18-07-2011\", \"2011-07-18\" without k

Answer 1

try DateFormat with the default Format DateFormat.MEDIUM and SHORT.

public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Make a String that has a date in it, with MEDIUM date format
    // and SHORT time format.
    String dateString = "Nov 4, 2003 8:14 PM";

    // Get the default MEDIUM/SHORT DateFormat
    DateFormat format =
        DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance(
        DateFormat.MEDIUM, DateFormat.SHORT);

    // Parse the date
    try {
        Date date = format.parse(dateString);
        System.out.println("Original string: " + dateString);
        System.out.println("Parsed date    : " +
             date.toString());
    }
    catch(ParseException pe) {
        System.out.println("ERROR: could not parse date in string \"" +
            dateString + "\"");
    }

Snipped from http://javatechniques.com/blog/dateformat-and-simpledateformat-examples/

On exception you have to decide what todo next, you can build a hierarchy of Parsing Trys. like:

SimpleDateFormat df1 = new SimpleDateFormat( "dd/MM/yyyy" );
SimpleDateFormat df2 = new SimpleDateFormat( "dd-MM-yyyy" );

df1.parse(..)
df2.parse(..)

and so on.