Is there a good *strict* date parser for Java?

A good way to do strict validation with DateFormat is re-formatting the parsed date and checking equality to the original string:

String myDateString = "87/88/9999";
Date myDate = dateFormat.parse(myDateString);
if (!myDateString.equals(df.format(myDate))){
  throw new ParseException();
}

Works like a charm.

I don't see that Joda recognizes that as a valid date. Example:

strict = org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormat.forPattern("MM/dd/yyyy")
try {
    strict.parseDateTime('40/40/4353')
    assert false
} catch (org.joda.time.IllegalFieldValueException e) {
    assert 'Cannot parse "40/40/4353": Value 40 for monthOfYear must be in the range [1,12]' == e.message
}

As best as I can tell, neither does DateFormat with setLenient(false). Example:

try {
    df = new java.text.SimpleDateFormat('MM/dd/yyyy')
    df.setLenient(false)
    df.parse('40/40/4353')
    assert false
} catch (java.text.ParseException e) {
    assert e.message =~ 'Unparseable'
}

Hope this helps!