Which date is smaller?

Question

Hi,
I have the "effective_date" value retrieved from a databse.
I need to check if this effective_date is before or after today's date, and accordingly perform some calculations..
I have trouble finding out if this effective_date is before or after today's date.
This is what I got until now.
//get today's date
Date now = new Date();
DateFormat df1 = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.SHORT);
String s =  df1.format(now);
System.out.println("Date in Short format: " + s); // this prints 7/18/06
DateFormat df = DateFormat.getDateInstance();
Date today = df.parse(s);  //convert string to date
//current_eff_date is the string value of "effective_date" stored in database
Date currentEff = df.parse(current_eff_date); //this value 5/30/2006 00:00:00
if (currentEff.before(today))
     System.out.println("Eff date is before current date");                                             
else
      System.out.println("Eff date is after current date");                    I get an error
java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "7/18/06"
     at java.text.DateFormat.parse(DateFormat.java:335)While I have my fomat as "mm/dd/yyyy", why do I get 7/18/06 instead of 07/18/2006?
How can I compare the 2 dates?

Answer 1

I had to change DateFormat df = DateFormat.getDateInstance(); to
DateFormat df = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.SHORT); in my previous posting.
The following snippet works.
//get today's date
Date now = new Date();
DateFormat df = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.SHORT);
String s =  df.format(now);
System.out.println("Date in Short format: " + s); //7/18/06
Date today = df.parse(s);  //convert string to date
System.out.println("Today: " + today.toString());  //Today: Tue Jul 18 00:00:00 EDT 2006
//current_eff_date is string value of date in database
Date currentEff = df.parse(current_eff_date); //convert string to date
System.out.println("Eff Date: " + currentEff.toString()); //Eff Date: Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2006
if (currentEff.before(today))
        System.out.println("Eff date before current date");                                             
else
        System.out.println("Eff date is after current date");