Make String to java.util.Date

I am getting date from HTML form i.e. 

String days=req.getParameter("days"); 
String months=req.getParameter("months"); 
String year=req.getParameter("year"); 

String job_start=days+"-"+months+"-"+year; 
String job_end=days1+"-"+months1+"-"+year1; 

How can I convert and compare with todays date? 

My Code: 
========= 

String query5="select sysdate from dual"; 
PreparedStatement ps5=cnn.prepareStatement(query5); 

rs=ps5.executeQuery(); 
if(rs.next()){ 
java.util.Date today_date=rs.getDate(1); 

    if(job_start.after(today_date)){ 
    //option 
    }else{ 
    //option 
    } 
String query5="select sysdate from dual";
PreparedStatement ps5=cnn.prepareStatement(query5);

rs=ps5.executeQuery();
if(rs.next()){ 
java.util.Date today_date=rs.getDate(1);

 if(job_start.after(today_date)){
 //option
 }else{
 //option
 }

What I did is; certainly its wrong aproach as: 

1. I am trying to write String instead of java.util.Date 
2. I am getting today date with oracle and don't know as to how can in get from Java 

Solution:

java.util.Date has many deprecated methods, instead use java.util.GregorianCalendar. 

Code:

import java.util.GregorianCalendar; 

public class DateTest { 

    public static void main(String[] args) { 
        int dayOfMonth = 19; 
        int month = 10; // month is zero based 
        int year = 2009; 

        // First date 
        GregorianCalendar gc1 = 
            new GregorianCalendar(year, month, dayOfMonth); 
        // Second date 
        GregorianCalendar gc2 = 
            new GregorianCalendar(year, month, dayOfMonth);  
 

        System.out.println(gc1.compareTo(gc2)); 
    } 
} 
import java.util.GregorianCalendar;

public class DateTest {

 public static void main(String[] args) {
  int dayOfMonth = 19;
  int month = 10; // month is zero based
  int year = 2009;

  // First date
  GregorianCalendar gc1 = 
   new GregorianCalendar(year, month, dayOfMonth);
  // Second date
  GregorianCalendar gc2 = 
   new GregorianCalendar(year, month, dayOfMonth);
 

  System.out.println(gc1.compareTo(gc2));
 }
} 

Notice that if you have the dates represented in String, you can compare them using the equals() method. 

Or 

Check out DateFormat and its most-often used subclass SimpleDateFormat. 

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