convert string to date type

Question

I want to convert string to date format, but the following way didn\'t work.

It yields null for birth.

Answer 1

Your answer is right on the money. I put it in a full program and tested it.
It now prints out

Default date format Fri Mar 30 00:00:00 CDT 2012
Our SimpleDateFormat 30-Mar-2012
Our SimpleDateFormat with all uppercase 30-MAR-2012

Here are some tips:

• Make sure that you are including the correct imports. Depending on what is in your classpath, you may have accidentally imported java.sql.Date or some other rogue import.
• Try printing the contents of birthDate before entering the try block and verify that it really contains a string of format dd-MMM-yyyy

-

import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;

public class BirthDate {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Date birth = null;
        String birthDate = "30-MAR-2012";
        DateFormat formatter = null;
        try {
            formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MMM-yyyy");
            birth = (Date) formatter.parse(birthDate); // birtDate is a string
        }
        catch (ParseException e) {
            System.out.println("Exception :" + e);
        }
        if (birth == null) {
            System.out.println("Birth object is still null.");
        } else {
            System.out.println("Default date format " + birth);
            System.out.println("Our SimpleDateFormat " + formatter.format(birth));
            System.out.println("Our SimpleDateFormat with all uppercase " + formatter.format(birth).toUpperCase());
        }
    }
}