Joda-Time provides a library of classes to replace the Java JDK Date and Time classes including formatting. It is based around the ISO8601 datetime standard, but also provides full support for other calendar systems, such as Gregorian and Buddhist.
Project moved to GitHub: https://github.com/JodaOrg/joda-time
This date parser for Java will parse the input from human people as date value. Differently to the SimpleDateFormat it will completely missing part with the current date. It will support all available locales (i18n). It has a very small foot print.