Declaring a date

Hi
I'm new to Java and I have a project where I have to set a date (ex:Sep/19/1982) using String headers.
I have to declare three reference variables that refer to String objects named month, day, and the year.
for example:
date = new String(“September 29, 2008”);
or
date = new String(“March 08, 2003”);
or
date = new String(“May 14, 1999”);
Etc…
it must work for multiple dates.

Are you able to use the DateFormat class?

If so, you can do some research on how to use DateFormat (I'm unsure) since the method DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.LONG) will give you exactly what you want.

If you have to write this all your own without the use of JAVA established classes (which defeats the entire point of JAVA), you can have an array of Month names. Since you will provide the first 3 letters of the months, you can loop through the Month array and get the first three letters of each name by using the method:

Code java:

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String s = String.substring(0,3);

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And find the correct month. From there, you can just return that index and presto, you have the full Month name.

However, before you do that, you will have to separate the Month, Day, and Year. To do that, use the split method provided in the String class:

Code java:

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String[] splitDate = String.split("/");

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With that method, you will know that splitDate[0] is the Month, splitDate[1] is the Day, and splitDate[2] is the Year.

The last thing you have to do is set the day to have two digits. You can do that manually or find another Formatter. The manual way would be by determining if the Day value is 1 or 2 digits by using the method:

Code java:

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int count = String.length();

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If it is 1, you know you need to add a 0 infront of it. Otherwise, leave it as it is.


That should be pretty much everything. I'm sure you can do the rest. Keep in mind that I used the Anonymous Objects: String for the method examples above. You want to use those methods on actual Strings for them to work. If you have any trouble writing the code, just post what you have and I'll help you out.

This is my setup:
public class Proj2
{
public static void main(String []args)
{
String date, month, day, year;
int dateLength;
char lastNumber;
date=new String("Dec 15, 1989");
System.out.println("The date is"+" "+date);
month=date.substring(0,3);
System.out.println("The month is"+" "+month);
day=date.substring(4,6);
System.out.println("The day is"+" "+day);
dateLength=date.length();
lastNumber=date.charAt(dateLength -1);
year=date.substring(8,dateLength -1);
System.out.println("The year is"+" "+year+lastNumber);





}
}
The problem is that if i change date=new String("November 19, 2001");
the month variable will have the value "Nov" and it should have "November"
the day variable will have the value "mb" and it should have "19"
and the year variable will have the value " 19, 2001" and it should have "2001"
I didn't learn the Split method, so I'm abit confused on how to approach that method

Ok, well the Split method is easy to use and will solve your issues. We first need to determine how the input will occur. If the input is formatted like this:

Quote:

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November 19, 2001

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We know that each part is separated by a space. So, we can use the String.split(" "); method to split our date. The String.split(String); method requires us to send it a String as a delimiter. A delimiter is an indication as to how we want to split the String. The String.split(String) method returns an array of Strings, where each index holds a different part of the original String.
So, the following code:

Code java:

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//Test Case for Date
date = "Dec 15, 1989";
//Split the Date based on a space
String[] splitDate = date.split(" ");
 
//Based on the format of your date, you know the first index will be the month
month = splitDate[0];
/* This one is more complicated. Based on your format, you will have an extra comma
 * at the end of your day String. So, we need to use the substring method to remove
 * that comma. We are guarenteed it will be at the end, so we just need to remove
 * the last character.
 */
day = splitDate[1];
day = day.substring(0,day.length()-1);
//Lastly, we can get the year String
year = splitDate[2];

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will use the split method to separate your formatted string based on a space. We can then use those individual Strings to set our other variables.

Wow thanks!!! You really helped me so much.

Hello Akim827,

If this thread is solved, please - http://www.javaprogrammingforums.com...ad-solved.html

@Aussiemcgr: instead of day = day.substring(0,day.length()-1); couldn't you just use day = splitDate[1].remove(",");

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brt93yoda

@Aussiemcgr: instead of day = day.substring(0,day.length()-1); couldn't you just use day = splitDate[1].remove(",");

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Didn't even think of that. That would actually be much better. Or at least easier to understand.