what is the Java equivalent of sscanf for parsing values from a string using a known pattern?

Question

So I come from a C background (originally originally, though I haven\'t used that language for almost 5 years) and I\'m trying to parse some values from a string in Java. In

Answer 1

For "17-MAR-11 15.52.25.000000000":

SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MMM-yy HH.mm.ss.SSS");

try 
{
    Date parsed = format.parse(dateString);
    System.out.println(parsed.toString());
}
catch (ParseException pe)
{
    System.out.println("ERROR: Cannot parse \"" + dateString + "\"");
}

Answer 2

System.in.read() is another option.