java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: “06-DEC-11”

Question

I am following code from,Pascal Bugnion book Scala for Data Science. First class to represent transaction

case class Transaction(
id:Option[Int], // unique identifier
candidate:String, // candidate receiving the donation
contributor:String, // name of the contributor
contributorState:String, // contributor state
contributorOccupation:Option[String], // contributor job
amount:Long, // amount in cents
date:Date // date of the donation
)

defined class Transaction

Then I have loaded dat with help of FEData singleton object

scala> val ohioData = FECData.loadOhio
ohioData: FECData = FECData@7e83a375

FECData object has attribute transactions

scala> val ohioTransactions = ohioData.transactions
ohioTransactions: Iterator[Transaction] = non-empty iterator

When I try to print first 5 transactions

scala> ohioTransactions.take(5).foreach(println)
java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "06-DEC-11"
  at java.text.DateFormat.parse(DateFormat.java:366)
  at FECData$$anonfun$1.apply(FECData.scala:26)
  at FECData$$anonfun$1.apply(FECData.scala:16)
  at scala.collection.Iterator$$anon$11.next(Iterator.scala:370)

Let's take a look at the first 5 lines of the csv file candidate_id,candidate,contributor_name,contributor_state,contributor_occupation,amount,date

P80000748,"Paul, Ron","BROWN, TODD W MR.",OH,ENGINEER,50.0,06-DEC-11
P80000748,"Paul, Ron","DIEHL, MARGO SONJA",OH,RETIRED,25.0,06-DEC-11
P80000748,"Paul, Ron","KIRCHMEYER, BENJAMIN",OH,COMPUTER PROGRAMMER,201.2,06-DEC-11
P80003338,"Obama, Barack","KEYES, STEPHEN",OH,HR EXECUTIVE / ATTORNEY,100.0,30-SEP-11
P80003338,"Obama, Barack","MURPHY, MIKE W",OH,MANAGER,50.0,26-SEP-11

Why?

Answer 1

Ok, the problem is that in the FECData is defined a dateParser as new SimpleDateFormat("DD-MMM-YY") .

According to https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html#SimpleDateFormat(java.lang.String) , it constructs a SimpleDateFormat using the given pattern and the default date format symbols for the default locale .

The problem is that your default locale (of your JVM) is not Locale.ENGLISH and so the DEC part of "06-DEC-11" is not parsed correctly.

You just need to patch the FECData : replace private val dateParser = new SimpleDateFormat("DD-MMM-YY") with private val dateParser = new SimpleDateFormat("DD-MMM-YY", java.util.Locale.ENGLISH) .

Ref. for Locale https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/Locale.html