/** * Parses a string as a date * * @param str The string containing the date * @return The date value parsed from the string * @throws IOException If there's an error parsing the date */ public Object parseDate(String str, DateFormat dateFormat) throws IOException { // If there isn't any, don't parse if (str == null) return null; try { return dateFormat.parse(str); } catch (ParseException exc) { throw new IOException("Error parsing date " + str); } }