Stupid date not formatting my output. What the hell?

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So everything checks out by the mentor except for the date. Even though I think I did everything by the book, SDF won't format my date in the desired output. What am I missing?

The first parameter of the main method is a file name.
Each line of the specified file has the following format:
name month day year
where [name] is a String that can contain several words separated by spaces.
[month] is an int, [day] is an int, and [year] is an int.
The data is separated by spaces.

Fill the PEOPLE list using the file's data.
Close the streams.

Example input file:
John Jack Johnson 12 31 1987 Vincent 5 15 2013

Requirements:

The Solution class must contain a public List<Person> constant called PEOPLE, which must be initialized immediately.
The program must NOT read data from the console.
The program must read the file's contents (use FileReader).
The file input stream (FileReader) must be closed.
The program must fill the PEOPLE list with data from the file.
The program should properly handle hyphenated names, such as Mary-Jo.

package com.codegym.task.task19.task1921; import java.io.BufferedReader; import java.io.FileNotFoundException; import java.io.FileReader; import java.text.DateFormat; import java.text.SimpleDateFormat; import java.util.Date; import java.util.*; /* John Johnson */ public class Solution { public static final List<Person> PEOPLE = new ArrayList<>(); public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception { BufferedReader bf = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(args[0])); String[] splitLine; LinkedList<Integer> birthDay = new LinkedList<>(); StringBuilder lineName ; StringBuilder birthdate2 = new StringBuilder(); while (bf.ready()) { lineName = new StringBuilder(); splitLine = bf.readLine().split(" "); for (int i = 0; i < splitLine.length; ) { //check to see if the first element is a number. if not, add it to the namelist try { birthDay.add(Integer.parseInt(splitLine[i])); birthdate2.append(splitLine[i] + " "); } catch (NumberFormatException nfe) { lineName.append(splitLine[i] + " "); } i++; } //so far so good String name = lineName.toString().trim(); String sDate1= birthDay.get(0) + " " + birthDay.get(1) + " " + birthDay.get(2); Date date1 = new SimpleDateFormat("MM dd yyyy").parse(sDate1); //printting date1 does it like this. what the hell ? Thu Dec 31 00:00:00 EET 1987 Person person = new Person(name, date1); PEOPLE.add(person); person.toString(); } bf.close(); } }

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Mike McKenna

Level 25 , Wilmington, United States

18 February 2021, 18:49

Hi Andrei, Guadalupe answer is the best

Guadalupe Gagnon

Level 37 , Tampa, United States

18 February 2021, 17:56

useful

Line 45 is the problem. Imagine this code running. The first loop cycle, lets say the birthday is "04 05 1983". In the list, birthday, those 3 numbers get added so the list is {04, 05, 1983}. Then on line 45 the birthday to parse is built using index 0, 1, and 2 which is 04, 05, and 1983. Next loop cycle the new birthday gets put in the list, lets say "05 14 1945". Now the list is {04, 05, 1983, 05, 14, 1945}. Line 45 then builds the birthday with index 0, 1, and 2 which is 04, 05, and 1983. Next loop cycle the new birthday gets put in the list, lets say "11 22 1998". Now the list is {04, 05, 1983, 05, 14, 1945, 11, 22, 1998}. Line 45 then builds the birthday with index 0, 1, and 2 which is 04, 05, and 1983. If you want my advice, this code does too much. For every single string, no matter the length, you know absolutely where the name ends and the date begins. It always occurs at the third from last space char in the String: John Jack Johnson_12 31 1987 ↑ third from last Vincent_5 15 2013 ↑ third from last Some really long name with lost of spaces_10 2 1920 ↑ third from last

Guadalupe Gagnon

Level 37 , Tampa, United States

18 February 2021, 18:21

also, in the People class, the toString() method returns null. It should not do this.

Andrei

Level 41

19 February 2021, 07:18

uuuu man that "third from last space" is some next level big brain algorithmic thinking. niceeeee. At first I thought I only have the issue of the timestamp being displayed as well but then I noticed it's the same date also, like you mentioned. I solved that by creating a new linkedlist everytime the while loop starts again. Now I need to think how I can stop preventing the poor date formatting. I will also think about what you said with the 3rd char from the end and try a solution like that.

Andrei

Level 41

19 February 2021, 07:43

solution

Apparently it accepts it like this, even though the output for a person is John Jack Johnson Thu Dec 31 00:00:00 EET 1987 instead of John Jack Johnson 12 31 1987

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

        BufferedReader bf = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(args[0]));

        String[] splitLine;
        LinkedList<Integer> birthDay ;
        StringBuilder lineName ;
        StringBuilder birthdate2 ;

        while (bf.ready())
        {
            birthDay = new LinkedList<>();
            lineName = new StringBuilder();
            splitLine = bf.readLine().split(" ");
                for (int i = 0; i < splitLine.length; )
                {
                    //check to see if the first element is a number. if not, add it to the namelist
                       try { birthDay.add(Integer.parseInt(splitLine[i]));
                       } catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
                           lineName.append(splitLine[i] + " ");
                       }
                       i++;
                }
            //so far so good
            String name = lineName.toString().trim();
            String sDate1= birthDay.get(0) + " " + birthDay.get(1) + " " + birthDay.get(2);
            Date date1 = new SimpleDateFormat("MM dd yyyy").parse(sDate1);
            //printting date1 does it like this. what the hell ? Thu Dec 31 00:00:00 EET 1987
            //apparently it's not a problem. who knew?

            Person person = new Person(name, date1);
            PEOPLE.add(person);
            System.out.println(person.toString());
        }
        bf.close();
    }
}

Nouser

Level 36 , Germany

19 February 2021, 08:32

useful

Your toString method doesn't provide functionality to output the name and date as you would like it. You could either adapt toString or don't use it when yout output the data like:

//System.out.println(person.toString());
}
bf.close();
// just  a loop and using the provided getter to output the data
PEOPLE.forEach(p -> System.out.println(p.getName() + " " + new SimpleDateFormat("MM dd yyyy").format(p.getBirthDate())));

or with changing the toString method

public String toString() {
    return name + " " + new SimpleDateFormat("MM dd yyyy").format(birthDate);
}

Andrei

Level 41

19 February 2021, 09:20

Oh, I see. So actually the birthdate is put correctly in the person class, I'm just not printing it correctly. Thanks!

Guadalupe Gagnon

Level 37 , Tampa, United States

19 February 2021, 14:17

algorithmic thinking. The more programming you do the more you will start thinking in algorithms too. =)