Java class StringFormat

I'm kind of a newie, I'm using Eclipse and I'm going through some examples where they use the class StringFormat (more exactly the method isValidDate ncluded in this class). But I can't find this class. I searched on the net for it and found out it may be in the package java.lang or java.text but I couldn't find in these packages. Does someone know what I have to do to be able to use this class (download it, install it) ?
Thanks a lot!

I'm a newbie too.

I'm not aware of any StringFormat class, but there's a format method in the String class which allows you to create formatted strings.

For example:

Code:

---

String myString = String.format("there are %d kinds of butterfly", 2145);

---

Is that the sort of thing you're wanting to do?

Not quite. I'd like to verify wether is a string represents a valid date by using the moethod isValidDate of the class StringFormat. But I can't use this method as I can't find the class.

This sorta works:

Code:

---

SimpleDateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy");
String date = "12/12/2121";

try
{
  Date d = df.parse(date);
  System.out.println(d);
}
catch(Exception e)
{
  System.out.println("This is not a valid Date: " + date);
}

---

The only StringFormat class I find is StringFormat which has no isValidDate.

What example in eclipse are you talking about ... or could you qoute some text from there?

This example provides methods for validating the data.
The code is:

package com.ora.jsp.beans.userinfo;

import java.io.*;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.*;
import com.ora.jsp.util.*;
import com.ora.*;
import com.ora.jsp.beans.userinfo.*;
import com.ora.jsp.*;
/**
* This class contains information about a user. It's used to show
* how a bean can be used to validate user input and format output
* so it's suitable for HTML.

@author Hans Bergsten, Gefion software <hans@gefionsoftware.com>
* @version 1.0
*/
public class UserInfoBean implements Serializable {
// Validation constants
private static String DATE_FORMAT_PATTERN = "yyyy-MM-dd";
private static String[] SEX_LIST = {"male", "female"};
private static int MIN_LUCKY_NUMBER = 0;
private static int MAX_LUCKY_NUMBER = 100;

// Properties
private String birthDate;
private String birthDateInput;
private String emailAddr;
private String emailAddrInput;
private String[] interests;
private String luckyNumber;
private String luckyNumberInput;
private String sex;
private String sexInput;
private String userName;
private boolean isInitialized;

/**
* Returns the birthDate property value
*/
public String getBirthDate() {
return (birthDate == null ? "" : birthDate);
}

/**
* Returns the birthDate property value,
* with all HTML special characters converted
* to HTML character entities
*/
public String getBirthDateFormatted() {
return StringFormat.toHTMLString(getBirthDate());
}

/**
* Sets the birthDate property value, if it's
* valid
*/
public void setBirthDate(String birthDate) {
isInitialized = true;
birthDateInput = birthDate;
if (StringFomat.isValidDate(birthDate, DATE_FORMAT_PATTERN)) {
this.birthDate = birthDate;
}

......
The effect is that only validated values can be accessed though the getter methods

Perhaps one of those com.* packages that are being imported contains a StringFomat class that has an isValidDate method. You would have to check the API docs for them.

Probably the class is in the package written with red (com.ora.jsp.util.*;) I don't have this package (an error occures when compiling). Where could I find this package and how can I add it to my project?

Sorry I don't know. Perhaps you can find it wherever you got the rest of the com.* packages. Perhaps you don't really need that util if you can write your own data checker.