Date Validation and Conversion routines (java.util.Date).
This validator provides a number of methods for validating/converting a String date value to a java.util.Date using java.text.DateFormat to parse either:
LocaleLocaleLocaleLocaleFor each of the above mechanisms, conversion method (i.e the validate methods) implementations are provided which either use the default TimeZone or allow the TimeZone to be specified.
Use one of the isValid() methods to just validate or one of the validate() methods to validate and receive a converted Date value.
Implementations of the validate() method are provided to create Date objects for different time zones if the system default is not appropriate.
Once a value has been sucessfully converted the following methods can be used to perform various date comparison checks:
compareDates() compares the day, month and year of two dates, returing 0, -1 or +1 indicating whether the first date is equal, before or after the second.compareWeeks() compares the week and year of two dates, returing 0, -1 or +1 indicating whether the first week is equal, before or after the second.compareMonths() compares the month and year of two dates, returing 0, -1 or +1 indicating whether the first month is equal, before or after the second.compareQuarters() compares the quarter and year of two dates, returing 0, -1 or +1 indicating whether the first quarter is equal, before or after the second.compareYears() compares the year of two dates, returing 0, -1 or +1 indicating whether the first year is equal, before or after the second.So that the same mechanism used for parsing an input value for validation can be used to format output, corresponding format() methods are also provided. That is you can format either:
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