[hardwired]

Code:

// If you are certain of the entry format you can try
// something like this. Save it as a member variable:
DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd");  // 2001-jan-12

/** Let it parse your string into a Date. */
Date strToDate(String dateStr) {
    Date date = null;
    try {
        date = df.parse(dateStr);
    } catch(ParseException e) {
        // recover
    }
    return date;
}