Spotify puzzle problem

Question

I\'m trying to solve the \"best before\" Spotify puzzle described on this page. Basically, with an input of three integers separated by slashes (e.g. 11/3/4) you\'re suppose

Answer 1

One bug: it accepts 2100/02/29. 2100 is not a leap year, so there is no 2011/02/29.

If I were you, I would use SimpleDateFormat for parsing and validating (hint: lenient parsing). It's much simpler, much intuitive and the code would be easier to read. (Don't Reinvent The Wheel)

Some other thoughts above.

Unnecessary assignments: return dateOK = false;

Just return with false:

return false;

(The dataOK variable is unnecessary in your case.)

public static void illegal(String dateInput){
    System.out.println(dateInput + " is illegal");
    System.exit(0); 
}

Throw exceptions instead of System.exit().

In the getBestDate() method the last two lines never run. They are dead code (since illegal() calls System.exit()):

}else{
    illegal(dateInput);
}

Integer[] bestDate = {var1, var2, var3};
return bestDate;

If it's possible avoid static methods and fields. Lastly, it's a good problem to learn how to write unit tests.