Question

 SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("mm/dd/yyyy");
 Date date = dateFormat.parse("11/04/2011");
 System.out.println(date);
 System.out.println(dateFormat.format(date));

Tue Jan 04 00:11:00 IST 2011
11/04/2011

When output the date object it shows as january instead of november. But when format the same date object it shows november correctly.

By making MM/dd/yyyy it both shows the correct result. But Shouldnt the mm/dd/yyyy throws an Unparseable date exception if mm/dd/yyyy is fishy?

Answer 1

A common error: mm is the pattern for minutes. You want to use MM to parse/print the month. Use MM/dd/yyyy instead of mm/dd/yyyy.

Since you parse the value 11 into the minute-part of the date and then print the minute-part of the date in the first place, the result of dateFormat.format(date) looks correct.