So I get a date attribute from an incoming object in the form:
Tue May 24 05:05:16 EDT 2011
I am writing a simple helper method to convert it to a calendar method, I was using the following code:
public static Calendar DateToCalendar(Date date )
{
Calendar cal = null;
try {
DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
date = (Date)formatter.parse(date.toString());
cal=Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTime(date);
}
catch (ParseException e)
{
System.out.println("Exception :"+e);
}
return cal;
}
To simulate the incoming object I am just assigning the values within the code currently using:
private Date m_lastActivityDate = new Date();
However this is givin me a null pointer once the method reaches:
date = (Date)formatter.parse(date.toString());
Here's your method:
public static Calendar toCalendar(Date date){
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTime(date);
return cal;
}
Everything else you are doing is both wrong and unnecessary.
BTW, Java Naming conventions suggest that method names start with a lower case letter, so it should be: dateToCalendar
or toCalendar
(as shown).
OK, let's milk your code, shall we?
DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
date = (Date)formatter.parse(date.toString());
DateFormat
is used to convert Strings to Dates (parse()
) or Dates to Strings (format()
). You are using it to parse the String representation of a Date back to a Date. This can't be right, can it?