Trying to parse a String to a Date

[Mike Curwen]

I just can't seem to get my DateFormat to parse a date. What am I missing??

import java.util.*;
import java.text.*;
public class GodDamnDate {
static public void main(String[] args) {
DateFormat dateParser = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.MEDIUM);
// from <a href="http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/i18n/format/dateFormat.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/i18n/format/dateFormat.html</a>
// MEDIUM  10-Apr-98
String create_date = "10-Apr-98";
// confirm us locale:
System.out.println("locale is: " + Locale.getDefault());
java.util.Date the_date = null;
System.out.println("trying to parse >>" + create_date + "<< as a date");
try {
the_date = dateParser.parse(create_date);
System.out.println("date parsed as : " + the_date);
System.out.println("formatted: " + dateParser.format(the_date));
} catch (ParseException pe) {
System.out.println("date failed to parse: \n\t" + pe);
System.out.println("something went wrong at: "+pe.getErrorOffset());
}
}
}

produces:

locale is: en_US
trying to parse >>10-Apr-98<< as a date
date failed to parse: 
java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "10-Apr-98"
something went wrong at: 0

I'm at the hair-pulling stage.

[Mani Ram]

Hi
Try with the following piece of code and see what is the format

DateFormat dateFormat = DateFormat.getDateInstance();
Date date = new Date();
System.out.println("Date: " + dateFormat.format(date));

In my system the locale is en_US but the date format is Nov 26, 2003

[Mike Curwen]

That worked. I've submitted feedback on the tutorial.