date - forcing 4 digits year in java's simpledateformat

Question

I want to validate and parse dates using a simpleDateFormat with the format "yyyymmdd" This also allows 100624, which is parsed to the year 10 (54 years after Julius Ceasar died). The dates will also be something like 1970, so I don't want to settle with SimpleDateFornat("yymmdd").

I'm wondering is there a way to force a four digit year format using the SimpleDateFormat? I'm close to do a regexp test upfront but maybe there is a smart way to use the (Simple)DateFormat()?

As requested the code, things are getting more complicate and my research was half. The Format used was yyyy-MM-dd to start with (it came from a variable, which had a wrong javadoc). However as indicated in an answer below yyyyMMdd does force a four year digit. So my question is changed to How to force a four digit year for the "yyyy-MM-dd" format. And why does "yyyyMMdd" behave different?

    public void testMaturity() {
    try {
        SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
        sdf.setLenient(false);
        System.out.println(" " + sdf.format(sdf.parse("40-12-14")));
        SimpleDateFormat sdf2 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
        sdf.setLenient(false);
        System.out.println(" " + sdf2.format(sdf2.parse("401214")));
        fail();
    } catch (ParseException pe) {
        assertTrue(true);
    }

Which prints 0040-12-14

Answer 1

Simply use yyyyMMdd (note: upper case M is used to indicate month, otherwise you're parsing minutes!) and then check if the year is greater some cutoff date (for example, when parsing birth dates, greater 1800 is a safe bet, when parsing dates for upcomming dates greater than or equal the current year would be good).