Given String Date is valid/not?

Question

Hi Friends,
I am getting date in string format e.g.
          String creationDate = "2007/02/30";
I want to check is valid or not. see in the example I have given 30 Feb 2007 which is invalid date. Is there any way to check the date is valid or not.
Any help will be appreciable for me.
Thanks in advance...
- Hiren Modi

Answer 1

use the java.text.SimpleDateFormat. The strategy is to instanstiate a SimpleDateFormat with the date pattern and then parse the input string with it to produce a java.util.Date. This in turn is fed back in the same SimpleDateFormat instance for formatting resulting in a String which is then compared to the input string. If they are not equal then the input string is an invalid date. something like
String input = "2007/02/30";
        String output = null;
        SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd");
        try {
            Date date = sdf.parse(input);
            output = sdf.format(date);
            if (!input.equals(output)) throw new IllegalArgumentException("invalid date");  // or however you want to handle it
        } catch (ParseException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }