Name: dbT83986 Date: 04/06/99


My JDK info:
java version "1.1.7B"
java full version "JDK1.1.7U"

My issue is that SimpleDateFormat parse() does not throw a ParseException in those cases where it should.

There are two situations: parsing the String "4F" with the parse pattern "HH" and parsing the String "4:2" with the parse pattern "hh:mm". (BTW, I know that this appears to be two issues, but they are closely related. Spank me if I should have submitted these separately.)

The problem in both cases is that the developer has to do a certain amount of prep work on the String before passing it to SDF.parse(). In the first case, I need to check for alpha characters mixed in with numeric characters. Note that checking for alpha chars is not something I need to do when using other patterns (e.g. hh:mm a). And in the second case, I need to check that the value for minutes is entered as two digits. Shouldn't 4:2 always be treated as invalid since it is ambiguously 4:20 or 4:02? (At the very least, it should be parsed as 4:20).

Here is sample code for both problems:

// parsing alpha chars with HH pattern:

import java.util.Date;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;

public class SDFIssueOne
{
public static void main( String[] args )
{
String parsePattern = "HH";
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(parsePattern);

String[] inputs = { "1", // works correctly
"15", // works correctly
"1A", // should fail but doesn't
"4F", // should fail but doesn't
"A3", // fails correctly
"junk" }; // fails correctly
Date retDate = null;

for( int i = 0; i < inputs.length; i++ ) {
try
{
sdf.setLenient(false);
retDate = sdf.parse(inputs[i]);
System.out.println( "Parsed date " + inputs[i] + " is " + retDate );
}
catch (ParseException e)
{ System.out.println( "Parse exception for " + inputs[i]);
System.out.println( e.getMessage() );
}
}
}
}

// parsing ambiguous minutes with "hh:mm":

import java.util.Date;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;

public class SDFIssueTwo
{

public static void main( String[] args )
{
String parsePattern = "hh:mm";
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(parsePattern);

// should fail - only last fail:
String[] inputs = { "3:45", // works as expected
"4:2", // DOESN'T throw exception (it should) - produces 4:02.
"5:234", // throws exception (correctly)
"11:" }; // throws exception (correctly)
Date retDate = null;

for( int i = 0; i < inputs.length; i++ ) {
try
{
sdf.setLenient(false);
retDate = sdf.parse(inputs[i]);
System.out.println( "Parsed date " + inputs[i] + " is " + retDate );
}
catch (ParseException e)
{ System.out.println( "Parse exception for " + inputs[i]);
System.out.println( e.getMessage() );
}
}
}
}
(Review ID: 56588)
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