Problem in passing Date object as parameter to iReport

[Kunal Lakhani]

I have created a report using iReport where i am passing 2 dates and its gets me the records whose payment date are between the given 2 dates. It works fine in iReport
Now, i am connecting this with my java code (using netbeans)
Here is the code :

private void PaymentBetween2DatesActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
            String input = JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Enter the Beginning Date"); //gets the starting date, but as a String type
            String input2 = JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Enter the Ending Date"); //gets the ending date, but as a String type
            if ((input != null) && (input2 != null)) {
                try {
                    HashMap parameters = new HashMap();
                    parameters.put("STARTING DATE", input); // here i need to pass the date object, but input is an String type. I need to correct this
                    parameters.put("ENDING DATE", input2);  //// here i need to pass the date object, but input is an String type. I need to correct this
                    MyiReportViewer myiReportViewer = new MyiReportViewer(
                            "reports/Tuition Payment 2 Dates.jasper", parameters);
                    myiReportViewer.setBounds(
                            0, 0, desktopPane.getWidth(), desktopPane.getHeight());
                    myiReportViewer.setVisible(true);
                    desktopPane.add(myiReportViewer);
                    myiReportViewer.setSelected(true);
                } catch (PropertyVetoException pve) {
                   pve.printStackTrace();
                } catch (Exception e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();

                }
            }
        }

The above code throws an exception. that's sure, since i am passing a String type instead of date object

Exception:

net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JRException: Incompatible java.lang.String value assigned to parameter STARTING DATE in the Tuition Payment 2 Dates dataset.

How can i get the Date type?

[Kunal Lakhani]

I posted this topic in "Java in general", because i think this problem is related to my java code.

Sorry, if i was wrong

[Kunal Lakhani]

Problem solved. Did a bit of googling. Found this code useful

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
System.out.println(sdf.parse(input));