question: public static Byte [ ] convertDate ( String date ) { StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer ( date ) ; String sdate = st . nextToken ( ) ; String stime = st . nextToken ( ) ; st = new StringTokenizer ( sdate , "-" ) ; String year = st . nextToken ( ) ; int iyear = 0 ; try { iyear = Integer . parseInt ( year ) ; } catch ( NumberFormatException ex ) { debug . error ( "MonitoringUtil.convertDate year = " + year + " not parsable" ) ; } byte yrlow = ( byte ) ( iyear & 0xff ) ; byte yrhigh = ( byte ) ( ( ( iyear & 0xff00 ) > > 8 ) & 0xff ) ; String month = st . nextToken ( ) ; String day = st . nextToken ( ) ; st = new StringTokenizer ( stime , ":" ) ; String hour = st . nextToken ( ) ; String min = st . nextToken ( ) ; String sec = st . nextToken ( ) ; Byte bz = Byte . valueOf ( ( byte ) 0 ) ; Byte byrhi = bz ; Byte byrlo = bz ; Byte bmo = bz ; Byte bdy = bz ; Byte bhr = bz ; Byte bmn = bz ; Byte bsc = bz ; try { byrhi = new Byte ( yrhigh ) ; byrlo = new Byte ( yrlow ) ; bmo = new Byte ( month ) ; bdy = new Byte ( day ) ; bhr = new Byte ( hour ) ; bmn = new Byte ( min ) ; bsc = new Byte ( sec ) ; } catch ( NumberFormatException ex ) { debug . error ( "MonitoringUtil error converting start date/time" + ", date = " + sdate + ", time = " + stime ) ; } Byte [ ] ret = new Byte [ 8 ] ; ret [ 0 ] = byrhi ; ret [ 1 ] = byrlo ; ret [ 2 ] = bmo ; ret [ 3 ] = bdy ; ret [ 4 ] = bhr ; ret [ 5 ] = bmn ; ret [ 6 ] = bsc ; ret [ 7 ] = bz ; return ret ; }
target:  date/time format is "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS" it should be an 8-Byte array, where bytes 0-1: year byte    2: month byte    3: day byte    4: hours byte    5: minutes byte    6: seconds byte    7: deci-seconds (will be 0)