Java string to date conversion?

Don't do it, that's the hard way. Moreover, those setter methods of java.util.Date are deprecated since Java 1.1 (1997). Just use SimpleDateFormat (click the link to see all available format patterns).

String string = "January 2, 2010";
DateFormat format = 

 new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM d, yyyy", Locale.ENGLISH);
Date date = format.parse(string);
System.out.println(date); // Sat Jan 02 00:00:00 GMT 2010

f you happen to be on Java 8 already, then use DateTimeFormatter 

(also here, click the link to see all predefined formatters and available format patterns;

 the tutorial is available here). This new API is inspired by JodaTime.

String string = "January 2, 2010";
DateTimeFormatter formatter = 

 DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("MMMM d, yyyy", Locale.ENGLISH);
LocalDate date = LocalDate.parse(string, formatter);
System.out.println(date); // 2010-01-02