title: How to parse dates in multiple formats using SimpleDateFormat
body: <p>I am trying to parse some dates that are coming out of a document. It would appear users have entered these dates in a similar but not exact format.</p>
  
  <p>here are the formats:</p>
  
  <pre><code>9/09
  9/2009
  09/2009
  9/1/2009
  9-1-2009 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What is the best  way to go about trying to parse all of these? These seem to be the most common, but I guess what is hanging me up is that if i have a pattern of "M/yyyy" wont that always catch before "MM/yyyy"  Do I have to set up my try/catch blocks nested in a least restrictive to most restrictive way? it seems like it sure is going to take a lot of code duplication to get this right. </p>