Java SimpleDateFormat returns unexpected result

Question

I'm trying to use SimpleDateFormat of Java to parse a String to date with the following code.

public class DateTester {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
        String dateString = "2011-02-28";

        SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("MM-dd-yyyy");

        System.out.println(dateFormat.parse(dateString));
    }
}

I was expecting some parse error. But interestingly, it prints the following String.

Wed Jul 02 00:00:00 IST 195

Couldn't reason it out. Can anyone help?

Thanks

Answer 1

By default, SimpleDateFormat is lenient, so to get it to fail, you need to do:

dateFormat.setLenient( false ) ;

before parsing the date. You will then get the exception:

java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "2011-02-28"

Answer 2

SimpleDateFormat has parsed 2011 as month number 2011, because month (MM) is the first part of the date pattern.

If you add 2011 months to year 28, you get year 195.

2011 months is 167 years and 7 months. July is the 7th month. You specified 02 as the day, 28 as the year, 28 + 167 = 195, so 02 July 195 is correct.