Unparseable date in java

I'm using java studio creator to build my application. I used the ajax component, Popup Calendar, and when I want to get the date and compare it with another date , I cann't :(. This is my code :

/开发者_如何学JAVA/ My Code

  SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd");

  java.util.Calendar startDate = java.util.Calendar.getInstance(); 
  startDate.setTime(dateFormat.parse(startField.getValue().toString()));   
//

Where startField is the calendar..

I tried to set the dateformattedpattern in the properties of the calendar to be the same as dataformat but it gave an exception.

Is there any suggestions to fix the problem?

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startField.getValue().toString() should be of the form yyyy/MM/dd