Formatting YYYY and YY date string distinctively in JAVA

Question

I want to support two date format in my code.

1) dd-MMM-yy

2) dd-MMM-yyyy

On the basis of year format in input dateString, I have to perform further date manipulation.

I have written below code for formatting the dateString.

    SimpleDateFormat format1 = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MMM-yy");

    SimpleDateFormat format2 = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MMM-yyyy");

    boolean doSomething = false;

    try {
        date = format1.parse(dateString);
    } catch (ParseException e1) {
        try {
            date = format2.parse(dateString);
            doSomething = true;
        } catch (ParseException e2) {
            System.out.println("Invalid format !");
        }
    }

    if (doSomething) {
        // Code
    }

Now my problem is, irrespective of whether the dateString has 2 digit or 4 digit year, it always get formatted by format1.

Example - 17-AUG-97 and 17-AUG-2097, both gets formatted by format1 only.

Is there a way that I can bring the control to format2.

If I do format2 first, the control will never come to format1. I want '17-AUG-97' to be formatted by format1 and '17-AUG-2097' to be formatted by format2. — Sharad Srivastava, Jun 07 '16 at 23:10
try http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16014488/simpledateformat-parse-ignores-the-number-of-characters-in-pattern — BevynQ, Jun 07 '16 at 23:18
@bevynq is correct (and should post his comment as an answer), because the year `97` is a valid 4-digit year for the year `97 AD` — Bohemian, Jun 07 '16 at 23:19
Wouldn't be easier just checking how long the string is? It is either 8 or 10 characters... — SJuan76, Jun 07 '16 at 23:20
Tried. Setting leniency to 'false' still does not solve my problem. — Sharad Srivastava, Jun 07 '16 at 23:27
@SJuan76 We can do this, but lets suppose if I want to add a another date format in future, lets say - format3 = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MMM-yy hh.mm") My string manipulation implementation will start breaking. — Sharad Srivastava, Jun 07 '16 at 23:31
@Bohemian I tried doing format2 first. Now both the dates 17-AUG-97 and 17-AUG-2097 are getting formatted by format2 only and the control is not coming to format1 block. — Sharad Srivastava, Jun 07 '16 at 23:35
I'd also consider using a regex to see which pattern is matched. — Joseph Larson, Jun 08 '16 at 00:41

Formatting YYYY and YY date string distinctively in JAVA

0 Answers0