The way the negative years are handled using the SimpleDateFormat
and DateFormat classes is strange, even with the setLenient(false)
being called :
format: MM/dd/yyyy or MM/dd/yyy or MM/dd/yy

the year -1 is parsed to 1999
the year -2 is parsed to 1998
.
.
.
the year -9 is parsed to 1991


It doesn't make any sense for the year -1 to be parsed
to 1999 as is the same for the rest (-2 to -9).

------------------------------------------------------
The following test case can be run to verify the above.

/**
 * You can change the format string to cater to
 * 3 or 4 digit years to check the ouput.
 */


import java.util.*;
import java.text.*;

class t3 {

        public static void main(String args[]){
                try {
                        DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat ("MM/dd/yy");
                        formatter.setLenient(false);
                        String s = "02/18/-";
                        Date d = null;

                        System.out.println("format string is: MM/dd/yy");
                        for(int i=1; i<10; i++) {
                                d = formatter.parse(s+i);
                                System.out.println(s + i + " parsed to " + d.toString());
                        }
                }
                catch(Exception e) {
                        System.out.println("Format exception" + e);
                }
        }
}


This also happens in jdk1.1.6.
john.s.lee@Eng 1998-11-02

This continues to happen in jdk1.1.7

This continues to happen in jdk1.1.8h build.
john.s.lee@Eng 1999-02-25