Date format /structure for JDBC

Question

Hi, can anyone tell be what format a date should be in when querying a database. I have some old code that was transfered to a new app server which follows Java standards very strictly. Now it gives me problems when comparing dates, for example a query that finds records for a date BETWEEN two other dates. The old format was dd-mon-yyyy, but this doesn't work anymore and neither does dd-mon-yy OR yyyy-mon-dd. When I do the query in the text editor(SQL Plus) it works, but not within the Java code.
Any ideas?
Thanks

Answer 1

I see what you mean now. Yes, format matters then. Your HTML page will assume that the string that's typed into the text box will be a valid date string using a format that you choose.
You should turn that String into a java.util.Date using java.text.DateFormat.parse(). Be sure to call setLenient(false) on the DateFormat instance before you call parse(). That way you'll get a java.text.ParseException if the String isn't valid according to your pattern and you can send an error page back to the client. (OR validate the pattern on the client side using JavaScript before the page is submitted.)
Once you've got a valid java.util.Date for your DateFormat instance, create a java.sql.Date to pass to the ava.sql.PreparedStatement.setDate method.
Warner's point is that by the time you get around to passing the java.sql.Date to PreparedStatement, all that validation stuff is supposed to be done.