Convert "mon dd yyyy" to "mm/dd/yyyy"

[Anonymous]

try{

Log.writeMessage(Log.LOG_LEVEL_DEBUG, "1");
String strTmp = "sep 21 2004";
Log.writeMessage(Log.LOG_LEVEL_DEBUG, "2");
java.util.Date dtTmp = new SimpleDateFormat("month dd, yyyy").parse(strTmp);
Log.writeMessage(Log.LOG_LEVEL_DEBUG, "3");
String strOutDt = new SimpleDateFormat("mm/dd/yyyy").format(dtTmp);
Log.writeMessage(Log.LOG_LEVEL_DEBUG, "strOutDt = " + strOutDt);

}catch(Exception ex){System.out.println(ex.getMessage()); }

I get unparseable date? How to solve this? The user enters date in this fashion. How do I convert it to mm/dd/yyyy?
[ October 07, 2004: Message edited by: shan javan ]

[David Harkness]

Originally posted by shan javan:
java.util.Date dtTmp = new SimpleDateFormat("month dd, yyyy").parse(strTmp);

Looking at SimpleDateFormat, I believe you want "MMM dd, yyyy". "MMMM" represents the full name, "MMM" the abbreviated three-letter name. It sees "month" as "m" the minute within the hour, "ont" as four unknown symbols, and "h" as the hour in the day.

[Anonymous]

Thanx.

Any date format I want to convert it into mm/dd/yyyy format? How to do that?

How do I know what format the user has entered?
[ October 07, 2004: Message edited by: shan javan ]

[David Harkness]

Originally posted by shan javan:
Any date format I want to convert it into mm/dd/yyyy format? How to do that?

From the SimpleDateFormat JavaDoc: "MM/dd/yyyy".

How do I know what format the user has entered?

Usually you simply tell the user to use a particular format. If you want to detect the format, you'll need to write a very complex parser.

For example, how do you know if they entered numbers as mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy? If mm turns out to be > 12, you can guess it's reversed, but cases like 03/03/1980 are impossible to distinguish.

In short, tell the user to use a specific format and then enforce it by displaying an error message when it fails to parse and letting the user enter it again.