public Date parseDate(String str) {
        if (str == null)
            return null;
        try {
            return dateFormat.parse(str);
        } catch (ParseException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }
    }
public Date parseDate ( String str ) { if ( str == null ) return null ; try { return dateFormat . parse ( str ) ; } catch ( ParseException e ) { throw new RuntimeException ( e ) ; } }
Parse the given date string into Date object.
The default <code>dateFormat</code> supports these ISO 8601 date formats:
2015-08-16
2015-8-16
@param str String to be parsed
@return Date