accepting a DATE input

[quipy]

what's the best way to accept a date input from a user? can i use Keyboard.readString, and somehow parse the string input as a date? if so, how?

[CornedBee]

Use a java.util.GregorianCalendar to construct a java.util.Date from various components.
To get the components, read in a string (however you do that, Keyboard.readString sounds like some programming class) and use a java.util.StringTokenizer to seperate them, then use Integer.valueOf to get an int.

[Dillinger4]

Just to add. Wether you end up using the GregorianCalendar class or Calendar.getInstance() these classes are not intended to present the fields in a form suitable to the end user. java.text.DateFormat would take care of that issue.

[CornedBee]

Argh, I knew there was something like DateFormat, but I couldn't find it in java.util...

[CornedBee]

You can try DateFormat.parse

[Dillinger4]

Yeah that class seems to come in handy. At least for me.

[quipy]

i cant seem to get a string to "parse" into a date...

String f = new String ("25/12/2000");

Date df = new Date(f);

no?

[CornedBee]

What is the result?

[Dillinger4]

Posted by quipy

i cant seem to get a string to "parse" into a date...

String f = new String ("25/12/2000");

Date df = new Date(f);

no?

Date(java.lang.String) has been deprecated

[Dillinger4]

I really don't think that there is a way to parse a string into a date or construct a date object from a string. All approaches seem to lead to dead ends.

 public class DateExample{ 
  public static void main(String[] args){
   try{
    // Date to String
    Date today = new Date(); //current time and date  
    DateFormat df = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.LONG);
    // Styles FULL LONG MEDIUM SHORT,DEFAULT
    String d = df.format(today);
    System.out.println(d);   
   
    /*
     String to Date
     Should be the same as Date(java.lang.String)
     which is deprecated but no compiler warning  
     is generated
  
   DateFormat df2 = DateFormat.getDateInstance();
   Date jan = df2.parse("01/02/03"); 
   System.out.println(jan);
   */
    
  /*
    parse(java.lang.String) in java.util.Date 
    has been deprecated

    long date = Date.parse("01/02/03");
    Date jandate = new Date(date);
    System.out.println(jandate);   
  
  */ 
   }catch(Exception e){;}      
  } 
 }

[Dillinger4]

Another dead end.

 import java.util.Date;
 import java.util.StringTokenizer;  

 public class DateExample{ 
  public static void main(String[] args){
   try{
   int counter = 0; 
   int[] i = new int[3]; 
   String date = new String("01/02/03");
   StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(date, "/");
   while(st.hasMoreTokens()){
     i[counter++] = Integer.parseInteger(st.nextToken()); 
   }
 
   // Date(int,int,int) in java.util.Date has been deprecated
   Date d = new Date(i[0],i[1],i[2]);
   System.out.println(d);

   }catch(Exception e){;}      
  } 
 }

[CornedBee]

The DateFormat approach should work.
The StringTokenizer approach can be combined with a GregorianCalendar or other Calendar subclass.