Java Date  How to convert String to DATE

One caveaty of the above posts to be aware of is if the first part of the string mattches the pattern a valid date will be returned.  Below is a DateTimeUtil method I created to specify whether the whole string should be matched or not.  So I can choose if date format pattern "dd/mm/yyyy" should throw an exception when the value "10/10/2007HelloWorld" is passed.  You can not rely on text.length() as a format pattern may have things like mmm which may evaluate to September etc.

      /**
       * Get Date from Text using the date format specified
       * @param dateAsText Text date portion
       * @param dateFormat Format the date in text is stored as
       * @param matchWholeString If you want an error to be thrown when a match is found and text exists after the pattern has been matched on the date as text value passed</b>
       *

 
       * e.g.

       *       Pattern: dd/mm/yyyy

       *       Value:   10/10/1977HelloWorld
       *

 
       * @return Date representation of the text date passed
       * @throws ParseException if text date can not be converted to a date using the format passed
       */
      public static Date getDateFromString(final String dateAsText, final String dateFormat, final boolean matchWholeString) throws ParseException {
        final DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat(dateFormat);
            df.setLenient(false);
            final ParsePosition parsePosition = new ParsePosition(0);
            final Date date = df.parse(dateAsText, parsePosition);
            
            // Check ParsePosition is to end of string, otherwise throw ParseException error
            if (matchWholeString && parsePosition.getIndex() < dateAsText.length()) {
                  throw new ParseException("Date pattern '" + dateFormat + "' when resolved and applied to date text '"
                              + dateAsText + "' does not match whole of text string passed, only to position " + parsePosition.getIndex(), parsePosition.getIndex());
            }
        return date;
    }