Why I can't parse a SimpleDateFormat with pattern "MMMMM dd" in Java?

I need to parse a string like "February 12, 1981" as a Date. I use SimpleDateFormat. But if I do:

new SimpleDateFormat("MMMMM dd, yyyy").parse("February 12, 1981")

I get java.text.ParseException.

I tried to reduce it to see where the problem is. First:

new SimpleDateFormat("MMMMM").parse("February")

works. Then:

new SimpleDateFormat("MMMMM dd").parse("February 12")

doesn't work anymore. Anyone know why? I also tried new SimpleDateFormat("MMMMM' 'dd").

I'm using JRE 1.6.0_06.

From stackoverflow asterite

• What version of JDK/JRE are you using?

  This works fine for me with 1.4.2_14, 1.5.0_16, and 1.6.0_07:

  SimpleDateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMMM dd, yyyy");
  Date parsed = df.parse("February 12, 1981");
  System.out.println(parsed);
  

  output:

  Thu Feb 12 00:00:00 EST 1981

  asterite : Thanks! It turns out in 1.6.0_06 it doesn't work. I ask a friend who has 1.6.0_10 to try it and it worked. So it must have been a bug fixed in 1.6.0_07. :-)

  matt b : I don't see it listed under the list of bugfixes in 1.6.0_07, but hey as long as it works... http://java.sun.com/javase/6/webnotes/ReleaseNotes.html#160_07

  asterite : Grrr... I just found out SimpleDateFormat parses localized dates, and my computer locale is, don't know why, Spanish, even though everything in the screen is in English.

  matt b : You might want to update the original question to include the actual fix (your incorrect locale setting).
  From matt b