Going back and forth between Date and String is not guaranteed to work..

DateFormatTests.java

package org.springframework.batch.item;

import org.junit.Test;

import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;

import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;

public class DateFormatTests {
	
	@Test
	public void testSimpleDateFormatWithDefaultFormat() throws ParseException {
		DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat();
		
		Date date = new Date();
		String dateAsString = dateFormat.format(date);
		Date sameDate = dateFormat.parse(dateAsString);
		
		assertEquals(date, sameDate);
	}
	
	@Test
	public void testSimpleDateFormatWithSpecificFormat() throws ParseException {
		DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss"); // choose whatever valid format you like
		
		Date date = new Date();
		String dateAsString = dateFormat.format(date);
		Date sameDate = dateFormat.parse(dateAsString);
		
		assertEquals(date, sameDate);
	}
	
}