def parseDate(self, dateString):
        """
        Parse short-form date strings::

            '05/28/2006' or '04.21'

        @type  dateString: string
        @param dateString: text to convert to a C{datetime}

        @rtype:  struct_time
        @return: calculated C{struct_time} value of dateString
        """
        yr, mth, dy, hr, mn, sec, wd, yd, isdst = time.localtime()

        # values pulled from regex's will be stored here and later
        # assigned to mth, dy, yr based on information from the locale
        # -1 is used as the marker value because we want zero values
        # to be passed thru so they can be flagged as errors later
        v1 = -1
        v2 = -1
        v3 = -1

        s = dateString
        m = self.ptc.CRE_DATE2.search(s)
        if m is not None:
            index = m.start()
            v1    = int(s[:index])
            s     = s[index + 1:]

        m = self.ptc.CRE_DATE2.search(s)
        if m is not None:
            index = m.start()
            v2    = int(s[:index])
            v3    = int(s[index + 1:])
        else:
            v2 = int(s.strip())

        v = [ v1, v2, v3 ]
        d = { 'm': mth, 'd': dy, 'y': yr }

        for i in range(0, 3):
            n = v[i]
            c = self.ptc.dp_order[i]
            if n >= 0:
                d[c] = n

        # if the year is not specified and the date has already
        # passed, increment the year
        if v3 == -1 and ((mth > d['m']) or (mth == d['m'] and dy > d['d'])):
            yr = d['y'] + 1
        else:
            yr  = d['y']

        mth = d['m']
        dy  = d['d']

        # birthday epoch constraint
        if yr < self.ptc.BirthdayEpoch:
            yr += 2000
        elif yr < 100:
            yr += 1900

        if _debug:
            print 'parseDate: ', yr, mth, dy, self.ptc.daysInMonth(mth, yr)

        if (mth > 0 and mth <= 12) and \
           (dy > 0 and dy <= self.ptc.daysInMonth(mth, yr)):
            sourceTime = (yr, mth, dy, hr, mn, sec, wd, yd, isdst)
        else:
            self.dateFlag = 0
            self.timeFlag = 0
            sourceTime    = time.localtime() # return current time if date
                                             # string is invalid

        return sourceTime
Parse short-form date strings::

            '05/28/2006' or '04.21'

        @type  dateString: string
        @param dateString: text to convert to a C{datetime}

        @rtype:  struct_time
        @return: calculated C{struct_time} value of dateString