Performance tuning in date validation

[Karthik Veeramani]

I'm trying to read the udp port and process the message, at a fast rate. as per protocol, i should check if there is a timestamp in the beginning of the message. This timestamp should only be in a specific format (like Jan 10 10:00:00). If i dont find this timestamp, i have to insert one myself.
My problem is, as this should be done for every message, i dont know how efficiently i can do this. Is there an easier way to validate the timestamp? right now, ive only thought of 1 thing - take the 1st 3 tokens, check the 1st token against a list of strings like Jan, Feb... , check if the other numbers r within the correct range, etc.
Please give me any kind of performance tips related to this (not only related to the parsing logic, but also on which classes to use to get better performance etc.)

[Jamie Robertson]

Have you looked at SimpleDateFormat?

String udpDate = "Jan 10 10:00:00";
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat( "MMM dd hh:mm:ss" );
if( udpDate == null )
{
   udpDate = sdf.format( new java.util.Date() );
}

you can also use the parse method to validate date structure( i.e. sdf.parse("Jan 10 10:00:00") will throw an exception if the format is wrong, otherwise it creates a java.util.Date )
Just another idea.
Jamie

[Karthik Veeramani]

Thanks very much. I'll knew about SimpleDateFormat, but wasnt aware of parse method. I'll look into it. thnx again.