How would I convert a user input for Date of Birth into a Calendar unit type to add to a parameterized constructor?

Question

Currently in Object-Oriented Programming here. I'm required to prompt a user to input several particulars, including a Date of Birth in the DD/MM/YYYY format. Then, these particulars will be used to construct a Customer object to add to an ArrayList. The Date of Birth must be in a Calendar type to be used to construct a new Customer object.

Thing is, I don't have a lot of idea around Calendar. Here are my questions:

1. How would I get a user input in a Calendar type?
2. If what I just said is not achievable, what would?
3. How do I prompt the user for a String date and then convert it to a Calendar?

I (kinda) know how to use date formatting, though I've no idea how to work around for a user input. Most of the stuffs I found on google and stack overflow doesn't relate to a user input (or it did and I just can't get my head around it). Here's my current code in question:

Scanner inputReg = new Scanner(System.in);

DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("DD/MM/YYYY"); 

String IC = "";
String name = "";
String date = "";
Calendar dob = Calendar.getInstance();
String tel = "";

System.out.print("Enter Date of Birth (DD/MM/YYYY ): ");
date = inputReg.nextLine();

dob.setTime(date); //and here I'm stuck

System.out.println(dob);

Answer 1

This works :

DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("d/M/yyyy");
  df.getCalendar().setLenient(false);......

and when you come out of the parsing

Customer c = new Customer(IC, name, df.getCalendar(), tel);

Complete Code without Name etc

Scanner inputReg = new Scanner(System.in);
          **DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("d/M/yyyy");
          df.getCalendar().setLenient(false);**
          System.out.print("Enter Date of Birth (DD/MM/YYYY): ");

          Date theDate = null;
          try {
              String date=inputReg.nextLine();
              System.out.println("date="+date+"@");
            **theDate = df.parse(date);**
        } catch (ParseException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

       ;
       Calendar dob=df.getCalendar(); // Set this inside Customer
       inputReg.close();

Answer 2

What you need is probably something like this:

Scanner inputReg = new Scanner(System.in);
DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("DD/MM/YYYY"); 

String IC = "";
String name = "";
String date = "";
Calendar dob = Calendar.getInstance();
String tel = "";

System.out.print("Enter Date of Birth (DD/MM/YYYY ): ");
date = inputReg.nextLine();

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy", Locale.getDefault());
cal.setTime(sdf.parse(date));

System.out.println(dob);

Answer 3

Here is a version which returns a "date" object.

Scanner inputReg = new Scanner(System.in);

    System.out.print("Enter Date of Birth (DD/MM/YYYY): ");

    Date theDate = null;
    try {
        theDate = new SimpleDateFormat("ddMMyyyy").parse(inputReg.nextLine().replaceAll("/", ""));
    } catch (ParseException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    System.out.println(theDate);
    inputReg.close();

Answer 4

Try this..hope it helps..

import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Locale;

public class ToCalender {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
        SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy", Locale.getDefault());
        try {
            cal.setTime(sdf.parse("18/01/2015"));
        }
        catch (ParseException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        System.out.println("dob : " + cal.getTime());
    }

}