Getting the Time component of a Java Date or Calendar - java

Is there a simple or elegant way to grab only the time of day (hours/minutes/seconds/milliseconds) part of a Java Date (or Calendar, it really doesn't matter to me)? I'm looking for a nice way to separately consider the date (year/month/day) and the time-of-day parts, but as far as I can tell, I'm stuck with accessing each field separately.
I know I could write my own method to individually grab the fields I'm interested, but I'd be doing it as a static utility method, which is ugly. Also, I know that Date and Calendar objects have millisecond precision, but I don't see a way to access the milliseconds component in either case.
Edit: I wasn't clear about this: using one of the Date::getTime() or Calendar::getTimeInMillis is not terribly useful to me, since those return the number of milliseconds since the epoch (represented by that Date or Calendar), which does not actually separate the time of day from the rest of the information.
#Jherico's answer is the closest thing, I think, but definitely is something I'd still have to roll into a method I write myself. It's not exactly what I'm going for, since it still includes hours, minutes, and seconds in the returned millisecond value - though I could probably make it work for my purposes.
I still think of each component as separate, although of course, they're not. You can write a time as the number of milliseconds since an arbitrary reference date, or you could write the exact same time as year/month/day hours:minutes:seconds.milliseconds.
This is not for display purposes. I know how to use a DateFormat to make pretty date strings.
Edit 2: My original question arose from a small set of utility functions I found myself writing - for instance:
Checking whether two Dates represent a date-time on the same day;
Checking whether a date is within a range specified by two other dates, but sometimes checking inclusively, and sometimes not, depending on the time component.
Does Joda Time have this type of functionality?
Edit 3: #Jon's question regarding my second requirement, just to clarify: The second requirement is a result of using my Dates to sometimes represent entire days - where the time component doesn't matter at all - and sometimes represent a date-time (which is, IMO, the most accurate word for something that contains year/month/day and hours:minutes:seconds:...).
When a Date represents an entire day, its time parts are zero (e.g. the Date's "time component" is midnight) but the semantics dictate that the range check is done inclusively on the end date. Because I just leave this check up to Date::before and Date::after, I have to add 1 day to the end date - hence the special-casing for when the time-of-day component of a Date is zero.
Hope that didn't make things less clear.

Okay, I know this is a predictable answer, but... use Joda Time. That has separate representations for "a date", "an instant", "a time of day" etc. It's a richer API and a generally saner one than the built-in classes, IMO.
If this is the only bit of date/time manipulation you're interested in then it may be overkill... but if you're using the built-in date/time API for anything significant, I'd strongly recommend that you move away from it to Joda as soon as you possibly can.
As an aside, you should consider what time zone you're interested in. A Calendar has an associated time zone, but a Date doesn't (it just represents an instant in time, measured in milliseconds from the Unix epoch).

Extracting the time portion of the day should be a matter of getting the remainder number of milliseconds when you divide by the number of milliseconds per day.
long MILLIS_PER_DAY = 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000;
Date now = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
long timePortion = now.getTime() % MILLIS_PER_DAY;
Alternatively, consider using joda-time, a more fully featured time library.

Using Calendar API -
Solution 1-
Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
String timeComp = c.get(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY)+":"+c.get(Calendar.MINUTE)+":"+c.get(Calendar.SECOND)+":"+c.get(Calendar.MILLISECOND);
System.out.println(timeComp);
output - 13:24:54:212
Solution 2-
SimpleDateFormat time_format = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss.SSS");
String timeComp = time_format.format(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());
output - 15:57:25.518

To answer part of it, accessing the millisecond component is done like this:
long mill = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
I don't know what you want to do with the specifics, but you could use the java.text.SimpleDateFormat class if it is for text output.

You can call the getTimeInMillis() function on a Calendar object to get the time in milliseconds. You can call get(Calendar.MILLISECOND) on a calendar object to get the milliseconds of the second. If you want to display the time from a Date or Calendar object, use the DateFormat class. Example: DateFormat.getTimeInstance().format(now). There is also a SimpleDateFormat class that you can use.

To get just the time using Joda-Time, use the org.joda.time.LocalTime class as described in this question, Joda-Time, Time without date.
As for comparing dates only while effectively ignoring time, in Joda-Time call the withTimeAtStartOfDay() method on each DateTime instance to set an identical time value. Here is some example code using Joda-Time 2.3, similar to what I posted on another answer today.
// © 2013 Basil Bourque. This source code may be used freely forever by anyone taking full responsibility for doing so.
// Joda-Time - The popular alternative to Sun/Oracle's notoriously bad date, time, and calendar classes bundled with Java 7 and earlier.
// http://www.joda.org/joda-time/
// Joda-Time will become outmoded by the JSR 310 Date and Time API introduced in Java 8.
// JSR 310 was inspired by Joda-Time but is not directly based on it.
// http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=310
// By default, Joda-Time produces strings in the standard ISO 8601 format.
// https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601
// Capture one moment in time.
org.joda.time.DateTime now = new org.joda.time.DateTime();
System.out.println("Now: " + now);
// Calculate approximately same time yesterday.
org.joda.time.DateTime yesterday = now.minusDays(1);
System.out.println("Yesterday: " + yesterday);
// Compare dates. A DateTime includes time (hence the name).
// So effectively eliminate the time by setting to start of day.
Boolean isTodaySameDateAsYesterday = now.withTimeAtStartOfDay().isEqual(yesterday.withTimeAtStartOfDay());
System.out.println("Is today same date as yesterday: " + isTodaySameDateAsYesterday);
org.joda.time.DateTime halloweenInUnitedStates = new org.joda.time.DateTime(2013, 10, 31, 0, 0);
Boolean isFirstMomentSameDateAsHalloween = now.withTimeAtStartOfDay().isEqual(halloweenInUnitedStates.withTimeAtStartOfDay());
System.out.println("Is now the same date as Halloween in the US: " + isFirstMomentSameDateAsHalloween);

If all you're worried about is getting it into a String for display or saving, then just create a SimpleDateFormat that only displays the time portion, like new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss"). The date is still in the Date object, of course, but you don't care.
If you want to do arithmetic on it, like take two Date objects and find how many seconds apart they are while ignoring the date portion, so that "2009-09-01 11:00:00" minus "1941-12-07 09:00:00" equals 2 hours, then I think you need to use a solution like Jherico's: get the long time and take it module 1 day.

Why do you want to separate them? If you mean to do any arithmetic with the time portion, you will quickly get into trouble. If you pull out 11:59pm and add a minute, now that your time and day are separate, you've screwed yourself--you'll have an invalid time and an incorrect date.
If you just want to display them, then applying various simple date format's should get you exactly what you want.
If you want to manipulate the date, I suggest you get the long values and base everything off of that. At any point you can take that long and apply a format to get the minutes/hours/seconds to display pretty easily.
But I'm just a little concerned with the concept of manipulating day and time separately, seems like opening a can o' worms. (Not to even mention time zone problems!).
I'm fairly sure this is why Java doesn't have an easy way to do this.

Find below a solution which employs Joda Time and supports time zones.
So, you will obtain date and time (into currentDate and currentTime) in the currently configured timezone in the JVM.
Please notice that Joda Time does not support leap seconds. So, you can be some 26 or 27 seconds off the true value. This probably will only be solved in the next 50 years, when the accumulated error will be closer to 1 min and people will start to care about it.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second
/**
* This class splits the current date/time (now!) and an informed date/time into their components:
* <lu>
* <li>schedulable: if the informed date/time is in the present (now!) or in future.</li>
* <li>informedDate: the date (only) part of the informed date/time</li>
* <li>informedTime: the time (only) part of the informed date/time</li>
* <li>currentDate: the date (only) part of the current date/time (now!)</li>
* <li>currentTime: the time (only) part of the current date/time (now!)</li>
* </lu>
*/
public class ScheduleDateTime {
public final boolean schedulable;
public final long millis;
public final java.util.Date informedDate;
public final java.util.Date informedTime;
public final java.util.Date currentDate;
public final java.util.Date currentTime;
public ScheduleDateTime(long millis) {
final long now = System.currentTimeMillis();
this.schedulable = (millis > -1L) && (millis >= now);
final TimeZoneUtils tz = new TimeZoneUtils();
final java.util.Date dmillis = new java.util.Date( (millis > -1L) ? millis : now );
final java.time.ZonedDateTime zdtmillis = java.time.ZonedDateTime.ofInstant(dmillis.toInstant(), java.time.ZoneId.systemDefault());
final java.util.Date zdmillis = java.util.Date.from(tz.tzdate(zdtmillis));
final java.util.Date ztmillis = new java.util.Date(tz.tztime(zdtmillis));
final java.util.Date dnow = new java.util.Date(now);
final java.time.ZonedDateTime zdtnow = java.time.ZonedDateTime.ofInstant(dnow.toInstant(), java.time.ZoneId.systemDefault());
final java.util.Date zdnow = java.util.Date.from(tz.tzdate(zdtnow));
final java.util.Date ztnow = new java.util.Date(tz.tztime(zdtnow));
this.millis = millis;
this.informedDate = zdmillis;
this.informedTime = ztmillis;
this.currentDate = zdnow;
this.currentTime = ztnow;
}
}
public class TimeZoneUtils {
public java.time.Instant tzdate() {
final java.time.ZonedDateTime zdtime = java.time.ZonedDateTime.now();
return tzdate(zdtime);
}
public java.time.Instant tzdate(java.time.ZonedDateTime zdtime) {
final java.time.ZonedDateTime zddate = zdtime.truncatedTo(java.time.temporal.ChronoUnit.DAYS);
final java.time.Instant instant = zddate.toInstant();
return instant;
}
public long tztime() {
final java.time.ZonedDateTime zdtime = java.time.ZonedDateTime.now();
return tztime(zdtime);
}
public long tztime(java.time.ZonedDateTime zdtime) {
final java.time.ZonedDateTime zddate = zdtime.truncatedTo(java.time.temporal.ChronoUnit.DAYS);
final long millis = zddate.until(zdtime, java.time.temporal.ChronoUnit.MILLIS);
return millis;
}
}

tl;dr
LocalTime lt = myUtilDate.toInstant().atZone( ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" ) ).toLocalTime() ;
Avoid old date-time classes
You are using old legacy date-time classes. They are troublesome and confusing; avoid them.
Instead use java.time classes. These supplant the old classes as well as the Joda-Time library.
Convert
Convert your java.util.Date to an Instant.
The Instant class represents a moment on the timeline in UTC with a resolution of nanoseconds.
Instant instant = myUtilDate.toInstant();
Time Zone
Apply a time zone. Time zone is crucial. For any given moment the date varies around the globe by zone. For example, a few minutes after midnight in Paris France is a new day while also being “yesterday” in Montréal Québec.
Apply a ZoneId to get a ZonedDateTime object.
ZoneId z = ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" );
ZonedDateTime zdt = instant.atZone( z );
Local… types
The LocalDate class represents a date-only value without time-of-day and without time zone. Likewise, the LocalTime represents a time-of-day without a date and without a time zone. You can think of these as two components which along with a ZoneId make up a ZonedDateTime. You can extract these from a ZonedDateTime.
LocalDate ld = zdt.toLocalDate();
LocalTime lt = zdt.toLocalTime();
Strings
If your goal is merely generating Strings for presentation to the user, no need for the Local… types. Instead, use DateTimeFormatter to generate strings representing only the date-portion or the time-portion. That class is smart enough to automatically localize while generating the String.
Specify a Locale to determine (a) the human language used for translating name of day, name of month, and such, and (b) the cultural norms for deciding issues such as abbreviation, capitalization, punctuation, and such.
Locale l = Locale.CANADA_FRENCH ; // Or Locale.US, Locale.ITALY, etc.
DateTimeFormatter fDate = DateTimeFormatter.ofLocalizedDate( FormatStyle.MEDIUM ).withLocale( locale );
String outputDate = zdt.format( fDate );
DateTimeFormatter fTime = DateTimeFormatter.ofLocalizedTime( FormatStyle.MEDIUM ).withLocale( locale );
String outputTime = zdt.format( fTime );
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the old troublesome date-time classes such as java.util.Date, .Calendar, & java.text.SimpleDateFormat.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to java.time.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations.
Much of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport and further adapted to Android in ThreeTenABP (see How to use…).
The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time.

Related

Converting from Joda to Java time

I need to convert joda time to Java time but having some issues
My joda time code :
p.s method is a long type (long argDateString)
DateTime istime = new DateTime(argDateString*1000);
DateTime NormalTime = istime.withZone(DateTimeZone.forID("UTC"));
return normalTime.toString();
My Java code :
Date istime = new date(argDateString*1000);
DateFormat normalTime = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance(DateFormat.Full, DateFormat.Full);
Return normalTime.format(istime);
With Joda I was getting
1970-01-15T05:45:05.000Z
With Java I am getting
15 January 1970 05:45:05 o'clock UTC
So is there a way to get what i was getting with Joda time ?
Thanks
tl;dr
java.time.Instant
.ofEpochSecond(
Long.parseLong( input )
)
.toString()
Details
Never use Date and DateFormat classes. These are terribly flawed, and are now legacy. They were supplanted by the modern java.time classes defined in JSR 310. The java.time framework is the official successor to the Joda-Time project, both being led by the same man, Stephen Colebourne.
Your first bit of code makes no sense: argDateString*1000. Strings cannot be multiplied.
I suspect your text holds a number of seconds since the first moment of 1970 as seen in UTC. If so, use Long class to parse to a long primitive.
long seconds = Long.parseLong( input ) ; // Parse text into a number.
Pass that number to a static factory method for Instant.
Instant instant = Instant.ofEpochSecond( seconds ) ;
Now you have an object whose value represents a moment, a point on the timeline, as seen in UTC.
To generate text in your desired standard ISO 8601 format, merely call toString. The java.time classes use the ISO 8601 formats by default when generating/parsing text.
String output = instant.toString() ;
All this has been covered many times on Stack Overflow. Search to learn more.

Java XMLGregorianCalendar is changing the time - Strange behavior

I have a date as input = 2021-03-12T10:42:01.000Z.... and I want to transform into this format:
String pattern = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ";
public String getDate(XMLGregorianCalendar input) {
DateFormat f = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern);
input.toGregorianCalendar().setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone(ZoneOffset.UTC));
String output = f.format(input.toGregorianCalendar().getTime());
System.out.println(output);
}
2021-03-12T12:42:01+0200
Basically, it's adding 2hs more. Maybe it's related with the time zone, I didn't test it in another computer. I have 2 questions:
Why this is happening
What can I do to avoid it? It's a legacy app so I don't want to do a big change
Thanks
Basically, it's adding 2hs more
Not really. It's giving you the output for the same instant in time, but in your system local time zone - because you're creating a SimpleDateFormat without specifying a time zone (or a culture):
DateFormat f = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern);
Personally I'd recommend avoiding using java.text.SimpleDateFormat entirely, preferring the java.time types and formatters. But if you definitely want to use SimpleDateFormat, just make sure you set the time zone to UTC (assuming you always want UTC) and ideally set the culture as well (e.g. to Locale.ROOT).
The Answer by Jon Skeet is correct, and smart. You appear to be seeing simply a time zone adjustment. Your two strings 2021-03-12T10:42:01.000Z & 2021-03-12T12:42:01+0200 represent the very same moment. The 12 noon hour, if two hours ahead of UTC, is the same as 10 AM hour with an offset-from-UTC of zero hours-minutes-seconds.
And, as mentioned in that other Answer, you really should avoid using the terrible date-time classes bundled with the earliest versions of Java.
tl;dr
myXMLGregorianCalendar // Legacy class, representing a moment as seen in some time zone.
.toGregorianCalendar() // Another legacy class, also representing a moment as seen in some time zone.
.toZonedDateTime() // A modern *java.time* class, representing a moment as seen in some time zone.
.toInstant() // Another *java.time* class, for representing a moment as seen in UTC.
.truncatedTo( // Lopping off some smaller part of the date-time value.
ChronoUnit.SECONDS // Specifying whole seconds as our granularity of truncation, so lopping off any fractional second.
) // Returns another `Instant` object, rather than altering (mutating) the original, per immutable objects pattern.
.toString() // Generating text representing the content of our `Instant` object, using standard ISO 8601 format.
java.time
The modern approach uses the java.time classes that years ago supplanted SimpleDateFormat, XMLGregorianCalendar , GregorianCalendar, and such.
Convert legacy <——> modern
You can easily convert from the legacy types to java.time. Look for new to/from methods on the old classes.
ZonedDateTime zdt = myXMLGregorianCalendar.toGregorianCalendar().toZonedDateTime() ;
Adjust to offset of zero
Adjust from whatever time zone to UTC by extracting an Instant. This class represents a moment as seen in UTC, always in UTC.
Instant instant = zdt.toInstant() ;
Understand that zdt and instant both represent the same moment, the same point on the timeline, but differ in their wall-clock time.
Truncation
Given the formatting pattern seen in your Question, you seem want to work with a granularity of whole seconds. To lop off any fractional second, truncate to seconds.
Instant truncated = instant.truncatedTo( ChronoUnit.SECONDS ) ;
ISO 8601
Your desired text format is defined in the ISO 8601 standard. That standard is used by default in java.time for parsing/generating strings. So no need to specify any formatting pattern.
String output = truncated.toString() ;

TimeFormat always from specific timezone

I have problem with date format I create App where I cant format time from current locale but always from specific locale UTC+1 or specific state, but I dont know how.
SimpleDateFormat("d.M.yyyy HH:mm", Locale.getDefault()).format(Date(date))
i need set locale or timezone like constant which not depend on physical position or phone settings.
I have data always in UTC-0 but I need transform it to UTC+1 (or other) and show to users.
Thanks for any help
For time sync I use TrueTime library
Here is a java.time example that uses a ZonedDateTime created from a moment in time, that is an Instant in the mentioned package:
public static void main(String[] args) {
// get a representation of a moment in time (not a specific date or time)
Instant now = Instant.now();
// then use that in order to represent it in a specific zone using an offset of -1 hour
ZonedDateTime utcZdt = ZonedDateTime.ofInstant(now, ZoneOffset.ofHours(-1));
// and use it again in order to have another one defined by a specific time zone
ZonedDateTime laZdt = ZonedDateTime.ofInstant(now, ZoneId.of("America/Los_Angeles"));
// and print the representation as String
System.out.println(utcZdt.format(DateTimeFormatter.ISO_ZONED_DATE_TIME));
System.out.println(laZdt.format(DateTimeFormatter.ISO_ZONED_DATE_TIME));
}
The output is
2020-02-18T14:31:21.714-01:00
2020-02-18T07:31:21.714-08:00[America/Los_Angeles]
You can alternatively use an OffsetDateTime of the same package.
The key is to use an Instant, derived from epoch millis. Those millisecond values are moments in time, too, independent from zones or offsets.
You are coding an Android app, so you might have to use the ThreeTenABP, a backport of nearly the entire java.time functionality for API levels below Android 26.
I think that, nowadays, using java.time or a backport of it is the least troublesome and most straight-forward way to solve tasks like yours.
Is this what you're looking for?
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("d.M.yyyy HH:mm");
LocalDateTime localDateTime = LocalDateTime.parse(dateTimeString, formatter);
ZonedDateTime zonedDateTime = ZonedDateTime.of(localDateTime, ZoneId.of("UTC+1"));

Elapsed time format HH:mm:ss

It's a simple problem but I'm not getting it to work.
I'm incrementing a variable each second and setting it in a GregorianCalendar in miliseconds.
And I'm using this format HH:mmss to present the elpased time.
The problem is that the hour starts showing 01 instead of 00. For instance, after 1 minute and 35 seconds what is shown is: 01:01:35 instead of 00:01:35.
Where could be the problem?
There is the important code:
GregorianCalendar timeIntervalDone = new GregorianCalendar(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-1")); //initially I didn't have the TimeZone set, but no difference
SimpleDateFormat dateTimeIntervalFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss");
public String getTimeIntervalDoneAsString() {
timeIntervalDone.setTimeInMillis(mTimeIntervalDone); //mTimeIntervalDone is the counter: 3seccond -> mTimeIntervalDone = 3000
return dateTimeIntervalFormat.format(timeIntervalDone.getTime());
}
I think the reason is you set the time zone to GMT-1, but the output is utc. Please try it without that time zone and it should work.
I finally got it:
GregorianCalendar timeIntervalDone = new GregorianCalendar();
SimpleDateFormat dateTimeIntervalFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss");
dateTimeIntervalFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
Your approach is a hack, trying to use a date-time moment class (GregorianCalendar) to represent a span of time. Plus your format is ambiguous, looking like a time-of-day rather than a duration.
ISO 8601
An alternative is to use the ISO 8601 standard way of describing a duration: PnYnMnDTnHnMnS where the P marks the beginning and the T separates the year-month-day portion from hour-minute-second portion.
java.time
The java.time framework in Java 8 and later supplants the old java.util.Date/.Calendar classes. The old classes have proven to be troublesome, confusing, and flawed. Avoid them.
The java.time framework is inspired by the highly-successful Joda-Time library, defined by JSR 310, extended by the ThreeTen-Extra project, and explained in the Tutorial.
The java.time framework does use ISO 8601 as its defaults, this otherwise excellent set of classes lacks a class to represent an entire period of years-months-days-hours-minutes-seconds. Instead it breaks the concept into two. The Period class handles years-months-days while the Duration class handles hours-minutes-seconds.
Instant now = Instant.now ();
Instant later = now.plusSeconds ( 60 + 35 ); // One minute and 35 seconds later.
Duration duration = Duration.between ( now , later );
String output = duration.toString ();
Dump to console.
System.out.println ( "output: " + output );
output: PT1M35S

Calculating difference in dates in Java

I find it funny that Java (or the java.util library) does not have a built-in function to calculate difference in dates. I want to subtract one date from another to get the elapsed time between them. What is the best way to do this?
I know the simple way is to take the difference of the time in milliseconds and then convert that into days. However, I wanted to know if this works in all cases (with daylight saving, etc.).
Java's not missing much, if you look at open source: try Joda-Time.
I know the simple way is to take the
difference of the time in milliseconds
and then convert that into days.
However, i wanted to know if this
works in all cases (with daylight
saving, etc.).
If your times are derived from UTC dates, or they are just the difference between two calls to System.getCurrentTimeMillis() measured on the same system, you will get a valid number of milliseconds as the difference, independent of any timezone issues. (which is why everything should be using UTC as a storage format -- it's much easier to go from UTC->local time; if you try to go the other way then you need to store the local timezone along with the local time -- or attempt to infer it, gack!)
As for turning this into a number of days, you should just be able to divide by 86400000... with the caveat that there is an occasional leap second every other year or so.
Use either Joda-Time or the new java.time package in Java 8.
Both frameworks use the Half-Open approach where the beginning is inclusive while the ending is exclusive. Sometimes notated as [). This is generally the best approach for defining spans of time.
java.time
The java.time framework built into Java 8 and later has a Period class to represent a span of time as a number of years, a number of months, and a number of days. But this class is limited to whole days, no representation of hours, minutes, and seconds.
Note that we specify a time zone, crucial for determining a date. For example, a new day dawns earlier in Paris than in Montréal.
ZoneId zoneId = ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" );
LocalDate now = LocalDate.now( zoneId );
LocalDate then = LocalDate.of( 2001, 1, 1 );
Period period = Period.between( then, now );
Then: 2001-01-01. Now: 2015-09-07. Period: P14Y8M6D. Days: 5362
For whole days, then Daylight Saving Time (DST) is irrelevant.
If you want a count of total days, use the ChronoUnit enum which includes some calculation methods. Notice the calculations return a long.
long days = ChronoUnit.DAYS.between( then, now ); // "5362" seen above.
I have asked about doing a full period in java.time, including hours, minutes, seconds. Not possible as of Java 8. A surprising workaround using the bundled libraries was suggested by Meno Hochschild: Use a Duration class found in the javax.xml.datatype package.
Joda-Time
Here is some example code in Joda-Time 2.3.
DateTimeZone timeZone = DateTimeZone.forID( "Europe/Paris" );
DateTime start = new DateTime( 2014, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, timeZone );
DateTime stop = new DateTime( 2014, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5, timeZone );
Period period = new Period( start, stop );
Calling toString will get you a string representation in the form defined by the ISO 8601 standard, PnYnMnDTnHnMnS.
With the date4j library:
int numDaysBetween = oneDate.numDaysFrom(anotherDate);
There is simple way to implement it. We can use Calendar.add method with loop.
For example as below,
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
Date beginDate = dateFormat.parse("2013-11-29");
Date endDate = dateFormat.parse("2013-12-4");
Calendar beginCalendar = Calendar.getInstance();
beginCalendar.setTime(beginDate);
Calendar endCalendar = Calendar.getInstance();
endCalendar.setTime(endDate);
The minus days between beginDate and endDate, and the code as below,
int minusDays = 0;
while (true) {
minusDays++;
// Day increasing by 1
beginCalendar.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1);
if (dateFormat.format(beginCalendar.getTime()).
equals(dateFormat.format(endCalendar).getTime())) {
break;
}
}
System.out.println("The substractation between two days is " + (minusDays + 1));
Have Fun! #.#
I disagree with the claim that Java doesn't have a mechanism for calculating the difference between dates.
Java was designed for global use. It was designed so that there isn't a concept of date, there is only a concept of "time in milliseconds". Any interpretation of such a universal time as the time-and-date in a specific location under a specific convention is merely a projection or a view.
The calendar class is used to turn this sort of absolute time into dates. You can also add or subtract date components, if you really need to. The only way to provide a difference in term of components between two times would be Calendar generated and specific. Thus, you could argue that the standard library does not include a smart enough Gregorian Calendar, and I would agree that it leaves some to be desired.
That being said, there are numerous implementations of this kind of functionality, I see others have provided examples.
Java's implementation of dates is poor. If you find Joda-Time too complicated, try my little contribution to open source:
http://calendardate.sourceforge.net/javadoc/index.html

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