How to optimize the choice of information decoder?

Question

Java

Good afternoon.
Now there is a problem when the input system receives data that is not classified in any way. There is a set of decoders, theoretically, one of them should successfully read this data, if none of them did it, then the data is not correct. But it doesn't look efficient - iteratively throw data at each decoder and wait for a response.
Are there any better approaches how to choose the right decoder?
In my case, this is just a string with a timestamp in different formats, but the specifics of the place where it will be decoded is such that there can be many such timestamps even in each individual request. I have some optimization ideas, but they are more crutches than an elegant solution :)

Answer 1

In cryptography, there are methods based on finding forbidden combinations of characters in a potentially decrypted text and screening out invalid keys based on this. That is, a full-fledged (resource-intensive) decryption is tried to be carried out only if there is not a single forbidden subsequence in the test set. Try modifying this method for your subject area.