The toDate(...) function has four variations, not counting syntax variations. You can convert a String to a Date with optional custom format string. You can also convert a DateTime to a Date with an optional time zone.

Syntax:
toDate( date-string )
toDate( date-string, format-string )
toDate( dateTime )
toDate( dateTime, timezone-string )
date-string.toDate()
date-string.toDate( format-string )
dateTime.toDate()
dateTime.toDate( timezone-string )

 

Parameter	Description
date-string	The String value to be converted to a Date value
format-string	The format string is used to interpret the date-string. If omitted the default format is "MM/dd/yyyy" which is a 2-digit month, 2-digit day and 4-digit year separated by slashes. For a description of possible format-string values refer to the Java API documentation for SimpleDateFormat.
dateTime	The DateTime value to be converted to a Date value.
timezone-string	The time zone string is used to convert the dateTime value to a Date. If omitted, the current user's preferred time zone is used. Any time zone identifier supported by Java 5 is allowed.