Question

I have two disparate date formats presented in my application as strings. Here are the formats:

1. 07/01/2011
2. 2011-07-01

I’m looking for the most efficient way to assert their equality.

Answer 1

Parse both dates using SimpleDateFormat and then use the equals() method.

The formats to use will be "MM/dd/yyyy" and "yyyy-MM-dd".

Sample code:

SimpleDateFormat format1 = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy");
SimpleDateFormat format2 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");

Date date1 = format1.parse(value1);
Date date2 = format2.parse(value2);

return date1.equals(date2);