Hashtable---getting value

Question

import java.util.*;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
class Test{
     public static void main(String[] args)throws Exception{          
          String Holidays_val = "1/25/207|SecondHolidayDay^2/01/2007|Anotherholiday^3/01/2017|newholiday^4/02/2007|someotherholiday^5/03/2007|Firstholiday^";
          String date1="";
          String holiday1="";
          StringTokenizer str1 = new StringTokenizer(Holidays_val,"^");
          Hashtable hs = new Hashtable();
          Date dates[] =new Date[5];
          int m=0;
          while(str1.hasMoreTokens()){
               String st1 = str1.nextToken();
               StringTokenizer stk = new StringTokenizer(st1,"|");
               while(stk.hasMoreTokens()){
                    date1 = stk.nextToken();
                    holiday1 = stk.nextToken();
                    dates[m] = new Date(date1);
                    m++;
               hs.put(date1,holiday1);     
          Date temp = null;          
          for(int i=0;i<dates.length;i++){               
               for(int j=i+1;j<dates.length;j++){     
                    if(dates.after(dates[j])){
                         temp = dates[j];
                         dates[j] = dates[i];
                         dates[i] = temp;
          SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy");
          Vector dates1 = new Vector();
          for(int k=0;k<dates.length;k++){               
               dates1.addElement(dateFormat.format(dates[k]));
          Iterator iter1 = dates1.iterator();
          Vector finalVec = new Vector();
          while(iter1.hasNext()){
               String date = iter1.next().toString();
               finalVec.addElement(date);
               finalVec.addElement(hs.get(date));     
               System.out.println(date);// printing the date CORRECTLY
               System.out.println(hs.get(date));//printing the corresponding holiday as NULL, when i place a hardcode date as hs.get("2/01/2007")---its printing the holiday name correctly.
               //GETTING NULL IN THE ABOVE LINE OF CODE, i should get the corresponding holiday name of the given date
               System.out.println(finalVec);
In the above code im taking the String Holidays_val, im separating the date and their corresponding holiday names, and then im sorting the dates and placing the dates and holidayname in a hashtable. finally im placing the date and its corresponding holiday in the vector, but the problem over here is im getting the null in case of corresponding holiday while putting in Hashtable.

Answer 1

Is this a joke?
Why are you turning the strings into dates, and then back into strings again?.
Even if the strings at both ends of the process are identical, it's a strange thing to do.
You should key the hashtable off of the Date objects.
Other issues:
You're using a deprecated constructor for Date. Use java.text.SimpleDateFormat to parse the date string and get a Date object.
Drop that whole thing when you turn dates back into strings.
Why do you add things to arrays, and then put them into vectors? Just add the Date objects directly into a vector.
But better yet, don't use Vector. Use a more modern List implementation, like ArrayList. And use a HashMap rather than a Hashtable.
And write to interfaces; the types of variables should be List and Map, not Vector or Hashtable (or ArrayList or HashMap).
Don't do the sort yourself. Use java.util.Collections.sort.
And you don't really need a separate List and a Map. Just use a SortedMap.
You can do this whole thing in less than half the code, and it'll work better too.