[marssaxman]

I wrote a lexer-driven date parser like that as one of the first contract jobs I ever did - maybe the first, I can't quite remember - at the very beginning of my software development career, back in the previous century. I remember feeling rather proud of it.

(In hindsight, I'm not sure that trying to accept any conceivable date format as if by magic was really such a great idea, but that's what my client wanted, and building it was an enjoyable challenge.)