SimpleDateFormat possible error in method parse

Question

I receive a string that represent a date, I need convert this string to date, and validate that the string is a valid date.

I receive the string 33-12-2013 a the par

Answer 1

The SimpleDateFormat class implements the Robustness Principle:

Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others

The implementors were probably aware of the behaviour of most Unix implementations of the POSIX mktime, which has similar behaviour.

Whether that is wise is arguable.