I need to generate a new Date object for credit card expiration date, I only have a month and a year, how can I generate a Date based on those two? I need the easiest way possible. I was reading some other answers on here, but they all seem too sophisticated.
You could use java.util.Calendar:
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.clear();
calendar.set(Calendar.MONTH, month);
calendar.set(Calendar.YEAR, year);
Date date = calendar.getTime();
java.time
Using java.time framework built into Java 8
import java.time.YearMonth;
int year = 2015;
int month = 12;
YearMonth.of(year,month); // 2015-12
from String
YearMonth.parse("2015-12"); // 2015-12
with custom DateTimeFormatter
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("MM yyyy");
YearMonth.parse("12 2015", formatter); // 2015-12
Conversions
To convert YearMonth to more standard date representation which is LocalDate.
LocalDate startMonth = date.atDay(1); //2015-12-01
LocalDate endMonth = date.atEndOfMonth(); //2015-12-31
Possibly a non-answer since you asked for a java.util.Date, but it seems like a good opportunity to point out that most work with dates and times and calendars in Java should probably be done with the Joda-Time library, in which case
new LocalDate(year, month, 1)
comes to mind.
Joda-Time has a number of other nice things regarding days of the month. For example if you wanted to know the first day of the current month, you can write
LocalDate firstOfThisMonth = new LocalDate().withDayOfMonth(1);
In your comment you ask about passing a string to the java.util.Date constructor, for example:
new Date("2012-09-19")
This version of the constructor is deprecated, so don't use it. You should create a date formatter and call parse. This is good advice because you will probably have year and month as integer values, and will need to make a good string, properly padded and delimited and all that, which is incredibly hard to get right in all cases. For that reason use the date formatter which knows how to take care of all that stuff perfectly.
Other earlier answers showed how to do this.
Like
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM");
Date utilDate = formatter.parse(year + "/" + month);
Copied from Create a java.util.Date Object from a Year, Month, Day Forma
or maybe like
DateTime aDate = new DateTime(year, month, 1, 0, 0, 0);
Copied from What's the Right Way to Create a Date in Java?
The most common sense approach would be to use the Date("YYYY-MM-DD") constructor even though it is deprecated. This is the easiest way to create a date on the fly. Screw whoever decided to deprecate it. Long live Date("YYYY-MM-DD")!!!
Don’t use this answer. Use the answers by Przemek and Ray Toel. As Przemek says, prefer to use a YearMonth for representing year and month. As both say, if you must use a date, use LocalDate, it’s a date without time of day.
If you absolutely indispensably need an old-fashioned java.util.Date object for a legacy API that you cannot change, here’s one easy way to get one. It may not work as desired, it may not give you exactly the date that you need, it depends on your exact requirements.
YearMonth expiration = YearMonth.of(2021, 8); // or .of(2021, Month.AUGUST);
Date oldFashionedDateObject = Date.from(expiration
.atDay(1)
.atStartOfDay(ZoneId.systemDefault())
.toInstant());
System.out.println(oldFashionedDateObject);
On my computer this prints
Sun Aug 01 00:00:00 CEST 2021
What we got is the first of the month at midnight in my local time zone — more precisely, my JVM’s time zone setting. This is one good guess at what your legacy API expects, but it is also dangerous. The JVM’s time zone setting may be changed under our feet by other parts of the program or by other programs running in the same JVM. In other words, we cannot really be sure what we get.
The time zone issue gets even worse if the date is transmitted to a computer running a different time zone, like from client to server or vice versa, or to a database running its own time zone. There’s about 50 % risk that your Date will come through as a time in the previous month.
If you know the time zone required in the end, it will help to specify for example ZoneId.of("America/New_York") instead of the system default in the above snippet.
If your API is lenient and just needs some point within the correct month, you’ll be better off giving it the 2nd of the month UTC or the 3rd of the month in your own time zone. Here’s how to do the former:
Date oldFashionedDateObject = Date.from(expiration
.atDay(2)
.atStartOfDay(ZoneOffset.UTC)
.toInstant());
Related
I have a report created in Jasper Reports which ONLY recognizes java.util.Date's (not Calendar or Gregorian, etc).
Is there a way to create a date 7 days prior to the current date?
Ideally, it would look something like this:
new Date(New Date() - 7)
UPDATE: I can't emphasize this enough: JasperReports DOES NOT RECOGNIZE Java Calendar objects.
From exactly now:
long DAY_IN_MS = 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24;
new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() - (7 * DAY_IN_MS))
From arbitrary Date date:
new Date(date.getTime() - (7 * DAY_IN_MS))
Edit: As pointed out in the other answers, does not account for daylight savings time, if that's a factor.
Just to clarify that limitation I was talking about:
For people affected by daylight savings time, if by 7 days earlier, you mean that if right now is 12pm noon on 14 Mar 2010, you want the calculation of 7 days earlier to result in 12pm on 7 Mar 2010, then be careful.
This solution finds the date/time exactly 24 hours * 7 days= 168 hours earlier.
However, some people are surprised when this solution finds that, for example, (14 Mar 2010 1:00pm) - 7 * DAY_IN_MS may return a result in(7 Mar 2010 12:00pm) where the wall-clock time in your timezone isn't the same between the 2 date/times (1pm vs 12pm). This is due to daylight savings time starting or ending that night and the "wall-clock time" losing or gaining an hour.
If DST isn't a factor for you or if you really do want (168 hours) exactly (regardless of the shift in wall-clock time), then this solution works fine.
Otherwise, you may need to compensate for when your 7 days earlier doesn't really mean exactly 168 hours (due to DST starting or ending within that timeframe).
Use Calendar's facility to create new Date objects using getTime():
import java.util.GregorianCalendar;
import java.util.Date;
Calendar cal = new GregorianCalendar();
cal.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, -7);
Date sevenDaysAgo = cal.getTime();
try
Date sevenDay = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() - 7L * 24 * 3600 * 1000));
Another way is to use Calendar but I don't like using it myself.
Since no one has mentioned TimeUnit yet:
new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() - TimeUnit.DAYS.toMillis(7))
Java 8 based solution:
new Date(
Instant.now().minus(7, ChronoUnit.DAYS)
.toEpochMilli()
)
Try this:
Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
c.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, -7);
return c.getTime();
A determining "days" requires a time zone. A time zone defines when a "day" begins. A time zone includes rules for handling Daylight Saving Time and other anomalies. There is no magic to make time zones irrelevant. If you ignore the issue, the JVM's default time zone will be applied. This tends to lead to confusion and pain.
Avoid java.util.Date
The java.util.Date and .Calendar classes are notoriously troublesome. Avoid them. They are so bad that Sun/Oracle agreed to supplant them with the new java.time package in Java 8. Use either that or Joda-Time.
Joda-Time
Example code in Joda-Time 2.3.
DateTimeZone timeZone = DateTimeZone.forID( "Europe/Paris" ); // Specify or else the JVM's default will apply.
DateTime dateTime = new DateTime( new java.util.Date(), timeZone ); // Simulate passing a Date.
DateTime weekAgo = dateTime.minusDays( 7 );
First Moment Of Day
Or, you may want to adjust the time-of-day to the first moment of the day so as to capture an entire day's worth of time. Call the method withTimeAtStartOfDay. Keep in mind this is usually 00:00:00 but not always.
Avoid the "midnight" methods and classes in Joda-Time. They are based on a faulty concept and are now deprecated.
DateTime dateTimeStart = new DateTime( new java.util.Date(), timeZone ).withTimeAtStartOfDay(); // Not necessarily the time "00:00:00".
DateTime weekAgo = dateTime.minusDays( 7 ).withTimeAtStartOfDay();
Convert To/From j.u.Date
As seen above, to convert from java.util.Date to Joda-Time merely pass the Date object to constructor of DateTime. Understand that a j.u.Date has no time zone, a DateTime does. So assign the desired/appropriate time zone for deciding what "days" are and when they start.
To go the other way, DateTime to j.u.Date, simply call the toDate method.
java.util.Date date = dateTime.toDate();
I'm not sure when they added these, but JasperReports has their own set of "functions" that can manipulate dates. Here is an example that I haven't tested thoroughly:
DATE(YEAR(TODAY()), MONTH(TODAY()), DAY(TODAY()) - 7)
That builds a java.util.Date with the date set to 7 days from today. If you want to use a different "anchor" date, just replace TODAY() with whatever date you want to use.
You can try this,
Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
c.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, -7);
System.out.println(new java.sql.Date(c.getTimeInMillis()));
Due to the heated discussion:
The question may not have a proper answer w/o a designated timezone.
below it is some code to work w/ the default (and hence deprecated) timezone that takes into account the default timezone daylight saving.
Date date= new Date();
date.setDate(date.getDate()-7);//date works as calendar w/ negatives
While the solution does work, it is exactly as bogus as in terms of assuming the timezone.
new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() - 10080*60000);//a week has 10080 minutes
Please, don't vote for the answer.
I'm doing it this way :
Date oneWeekAgo = DateUtils.addDays(DateUtils.truncate(new Date(), java.util.Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH), -7);
If I take current date from my application, it comes with variation like below:
scenario 1: when the date is less than 10th of the month, a month is less than 10 of the year --> example: 5/9/18
scenario 2: when the date is >= 10th of the month, a month is less >= 10 of the year --> example: 10/11/18
Note: all the examples are in MM/DD/YY format and timezone is the USA
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.add(Calendar.DATE,-2);
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yy HH:mm a");
String PastDate = dateFormat.format(cal.getTime());
info("Date is displayed as : "+ PastDate );
The above piece of code throwing me an error when the scenario 1 is in place. But if I format the date-time as "M/d/yy H:mm a" it works for both the scenario. I need the date add also.
Will it be a good practice to use the 2nd format? or there is any other way to get it done. Expert guidance please..
java.time
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofLocalizedDateTime(FormatStyle.SHORT)
.withLocale(Locale.US);
ZonedDateTime dayBeforeYesterday = ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId.of("America/St_Thomas"))
.minusDays(2);
System.out.println(dayBeforeYesterday.format(formatter));
Running just now I got this output:
5/7/18, 8:44 AM
Please specify your desired time zone where I put America/St_Thomas. Think twice before you use ZoneId.systemDefault() for your JVM’s time zone setting since this setting may be changed at any time from other parts of your program or other programs running in the same JVM; but if you trust the setting reflects the user’s time zone, it’s the correct thing to use.
Rather than defining your own output format prefer using one of the built-in formats you get from DateTimeFormatter.ofLocalizedDateTime. Do specify locale (no matter if you use a built-in format or roll your own). Again, use Locale.getDefault() if you trust the JVM’s setting is correct.
Avoid the old date and time classes like Calendar, DateFormat and SimpleDateFormat. They are not only long outdated, they are also poorly designed and the last two in particular notoriously troublesome. Today we have so much better in java.time, the modern Java date and time API.
Link: Oracle tutorial: Date Time explaining how to use java.time.
The number of characters in the format MM indicates that two digits are required in the input. A single character M will match one or two digits. Use M/d/yy H:mm a to support your desired formats.
I need to set my GregorianCalendar to a specific hour of day, which is the closest but not future.
If the time now is 21:00, and I need set the hour 22, it will be set to yesterday. But if the time now is 23:00, it will be set for today.
LocalTime hour = LocalTime.of(22, 0);
ZonedDateTime now = ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId.of("America/Indiana/Marengo"));
ZonedDateTime closestHour = now.with(hour);
if (closestHour.isAfter(now)) { // future
closestHour = now.minusDays(1).with(hour);
}
System.out.println(closestHour);
This printed
2018-02-04T22:00-05:00[America/Indiana/Marengo]
The above is a sketch, not code that is ready for production. You need to supply your desired time zone if it didn’t happen to be America/Indiana/Marengo. And the desired clock hour, of course. If the desired time doesn’t exist, typically in the spring transition to summer time (DST), ZonedDateTime will pick a different time, you will need to detect that and act accordingly.
java.time
You asked for a GregorianCalendar, and I will give you one, but allow me to mention that that class is long outdated and poorly designed, so you shouldn’t want one. I recommend you use java.time, the modern Java date and time API instead.
If you need a GregorianCalendar or just a Calendar object for a legacy API that you cannot change or don’t want to change just now, convert like this:
GregorianCalendar cal = GregorianCalendar.from(closestHour);
Link: Oracle tutorial: Date Time
In Android, I am using java.util.Calendar to get yesterday date in format yyyy-MM-dd'T'hh:mm:ss'Z'. For example if today is 31 May 2017, I want to get yesterday date as 2017-05-30T00:00:00Z.
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
// Date End = yesterday
calendar.add(Calendar.DATE, -1);
Date dateEnd = calendar.getTime();
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'hh:mm:ss'Z'");
this.dateEndStr = formatter.format(dateEnd);
I am expecting output to be 2017-05-30T00:00:00Z. But it gives me 2017-05-30T12:00:00Z.
What is wrong here? Is it TimeZone related? My timezone is GMT/UTC + 08:00 hour.
I am probably answering more than you asked about, but now you have asked, why not take all of it? I see two or three things wrong with your code. bowmore in another answer has touched on all three already, but I think a couple of them can be made a little clearer still:
Yes, the first and most serious is time zone related. You need to decide, and you should make explicit in your code, which time zone you use. And it is incorrect to give Z as time zone on a time at zone offset +08:00. Z is for Zulu time, another name for UTC.
In your format pattern, you should use capital HH for hour of day.
You should prefer the modern date and time classes, in principle always, but at least for a case like this. With these you won’t be able to make the errors you did with the oldfashioned SimpleDateFormat.
Time zone
Time zone is crucial to your task. You need to decide whether yesterday’s date in UTC (as your requested output says), in GMT/UTC + 08:00 or, say, in the the JVM’s current time zone (which can be changed at any time while your program is running). This snippet uses UTC:
this.yesterdayAtStartOfDay = LocalDate.now(ZoneOffset.UTC)
.minusDays(1)
.atStartOfDay(ZoneOffset.UTC)
.format(DateTimeFormatter.ISO_INSTANT);
Running it just now, the result is
2017-05-30T00:00:00Z
Instead of the last line of the snippet, you may use the even simpler:
.toString();
This gives the same result because atStartOfDay() gives a ZonedDateTime with time zone Z, and its toString() method gives the ISO 8601 string you requested.
If you want yesterday’s date in another time zone, in the first line of the snippet (and only the first line) use for example ZoneOffset.ofHours(8), ZoneId.of("Asia/Hong_Kong") or ZoneId.systemDefault() as time zone.
In case you are using Java 6 or 7, to use the modern date and time classes you need to get the ThreeTen-Backport library. Even though I always think twice before introducing an external dependency, I recommend this one warmly for your task.
That back-port is further adapted for Android in the ThreeTenABP project.
This is simply a mistake in your SimpleDateFormat.
You use hh for the hours, but that shows the one based hour of AM/PM.
These are the relevant symbols (from SimpleDateFormat)
H Hour in day (0-23)
k Hour in day (1-24)
K Hour in am/pm (0-11)
h Hour in am/pm (1-12)
You want this : "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'"
Remark
You say your timezone is +08:00 hours, and you calculate the date using that timezone, however you format it as if it's in the Zulu timezone (which has an offset of +00:00)
BONUS
In Java 8 all this Calendar manipulating goes away :
ZonedDateTime yesterday = ZonedDateTime.now().with(ChronoField.NANO_OF_DAY, 0).minusDays(1);
DateTimeFormatter dateTimeFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'");
dateEndStr = formatter.format(dateEnd);
cal.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR, -1);
To subtract days, you should use:
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, -5);
I need today's date - and zero anything else (" 05/06/08 00:00:00 ")
I've tried
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR, 0);
Date date1 = calendar.getTime();
System.out.println(date1);
Run: (This is seriously messed up)
If the hour on the computer is < 12:00 at noon : Sun Mar 08 00:44:39 IST 2009
If the hour on the computer is > 12:00 at noon : Sun Mar 08 12:46:53 IST 2009
So I gave this up.
All the Date's setters are deprecated (except the epoch time) - so I don't want to use them either
The only thing I could think of is
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
String sDate = dateFormat.format(calendar.getTime());
Date today = dateFormat.parse(sDate);
But this is such a lame code I can't bring myself to write it.
Any other option?
Thanks!
I use this:
public static Date startOfDay(Date date) {
Calendar dCal = Calendar.getInstance();
dCal.setTime(date);
dCal.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
dCal.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
dCal.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
dCal.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
return dCal.getTime();
}
My standard advice for Java date/time questions: don't use java.util.{Calendar,Date}. Use Joda Time. That way you can represent a date as a date (with no associated time zone), instead of a date/time. Or you could use a DateMidnight if that's what you want to represent. (Be careful of combinations of time zone and date where there is no midnight though...)
What do you need to use the Date with? If you can get away with changing to use Joda throughout, that's great. Otherwise, you can use Joda to do what you want and then convert to milliseconds (and then to java.util.Date) when you really need to.
(Michael's solution when using Date/Calendar is fine if you really want to stick within a broken API... but I can't overstate how much better Joda is...)
You should use HOUR_OF_DAY instead of HOUR and combine it with MINUTE and SECOND also.
import java.util.Calendar;
import static java.util.Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY;
import static java.util.Calendar.MINUTE;
import static java.util.Calendar.SECOND;
import static java.util.Calendar.MILLISECOND;
public class Today {
public static void main( String [] args ) {
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.set( HOUR_OF_DAY, 0 );
cal.set( MINUTE, 0 );
cal.set( SECOND, 0 );
cal.set( MILLISECOND, 0 );
System.out.println( cal.getTime() );
}
}
The results you are getting are due to HOUR is used to AM/PM while HOUR_OF_DAY is 24 hrs.
HOUR_OF_DAY:
Field number for get and set indicating the hour of the day. HOUR_OF_DAY is used for the 24-hour clock. E.g., at 10:04:15.250 PM the HOUR_OF_DAY is 22.
HOUR:
Field number for get and set indicating the hour of the morning or afternoon. HOUR is used for the 12-hour clock (0 - 11). Noon and midnight are represented by 0, not by 12. E.g., at 10:04:15.250 PM the HOUR is 10.
The time component is not just hours (and Calendar.HOUR is, as you have noticed, AM/PM).
You need to set all of the time fields to 0: HOUR_OF_DAY, MINUTE, SECOND, MILLISECOND.
See Apache's commons-lang DateUtils.truncate()
java.time
The java.util Date-Time API and their formatting API, SimpleDateFormat are outdated and error-prone. It is recommended to stop using them completely and switch to the modern Date-Time API*.
Also, quoted below is a notice from the home page of Joda-Time:
Note that from Java SE 8 onwards, users are asked to migrate to java.time (JSR-310) - a core part of the JDK which replaces this project.
Solution using java.time, the modern Date-Time API:
The modern Date-Time API has many types which truly represent a date or time or date-time in a specific timezone. You can choose from the following options as per your specific requirement:
If you are looking for a type that represents a date without a timezone, you can use LocalDate.now. The good news is that its variant, LocalDate#now(ZoneId) returns the current date from the system clock in the specified time-zone.
If you are looking for an object that represents a date without a timezone, and with time units set to zero, you can call LocalDate#atStartOfDay on the object obtained with Option#1.
If you are looking for an Instant representing the Date-Time object obtained with Option#2, you can attach this object with ZoneId.of("Etc/UTC") using LocalDateTime#atZone to obtain a ZonedDateTime and convert the same into an Instant using ZonedDateTime#toInstant.
Demo:
import java.time.Instant;
import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.ZoneId;
import java.time.ZonedDateTime;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
LocalDate todayInSystemTz = LocalDate.now();
System.out.println(todayInSystemTz);
LocalDate todayInIndia = LocalDate.now(ZoneId.of("Asia/Kolkata"));
System.out.println(todayInIndia);
LocalDateTime todayInSystemTzWithZeroTimeUnits = todayInSystemTz.atStartOfDay();
System.out.println(todayInSystemTzWithZeroTimeUnits);
ZonedDateTime todayInUtcWithZeroTimeUnits = todayInSystemTzWithZeroTimeUnits.atZone(ZoneId.of("Etc/UTC"));
System.out.println(todayInUtcWithZeroTimeUnits);
Instant instant = todayInUtcWithZeroTimeUnits.toInstant();
System.out.println(instant);
// Can I represent the obtained Instant in India?
System.out.println(instant.atZone(ZoneId.of("Asia/Kolkata")));
// Can I represent the obtained Instant in New York?
System.out.println(instant.atZone(ZoneId.of("America/New_York")));
}
}
Output:
2021-06-20
2021-06-20
2021-06-20T00:00
2021-06-20T00:00Z[Etc/UTC]
2021-06-20T00:00:00Z
2021-06-20T05:30+05:30[Asia/Kolkata]
2021-06-19T20:00-04:00[America/New_York]
ONLINE DEMO
The Z in the output is the timezone designator for zero-timezone offset. It stands for Zulu and specifies the Etc/UTC timezone (which has the timezone offset of +00:00 hours).
For any reason, if you need to convert this object of Instant to an object of java.util.Date**, you can do so as follows:
Date date = Date.from(instant);
Learn more about the modern Date-Time API from Trail: Date Time.
* For any reason, if you have to stick to Java 6 or Java 7, you can use ThreeTen-Backport which backports most of the java.time functionality to Java 6 & 7. If you are working for an Android project and your Android API level is still not compliant with Java-8, check Java 8+ APIs available through desugaring and How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project.
**
A java.util.Date object simply represents the number of milliseconds since the standard base time known as "the epoch", namely January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT (or UTC). Since it does not hold any timezone information, its toString function applies the JVM's timezone to return a String in the format, EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss zzz yyyy, derived from this milliseconds value. To get the String representation of the java.util.Date object in a different format and timezone, you need to use SimpleDateFormat with the desired format and the applicable timezone e.g.
Date date = new Date();
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXX", Locale.ENGLISH);
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("America/New_York"));
String strDateNewYork = sdf.format(date);
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("Etc/UTC"));
String strDateUtc = sdf.format(date);
As mentioned above you should use
Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY
As opposed to
Calendar.HOUR
Also you need to clear out the other fields (Calendar.MINUTE, Calendar.SECOND, and Calendar.MILLISECOND) by setting them to zero.
Sorry there's no easy way here. A pain, and that's why they're working on a new API for Java 7 I believe based on Joda Time.
...or you can do it the hacker way:
long MS_PER_DAY = 86400000L;
Date dateTime=new Date();
long offset = TimeZone.getDefault().getOffset(dateTime.getTime());
Date date= new Date(((dateTime.getTime()+offset)/MS_PER_DAY)*MS_PER_DAY-offset);
I know this is a very old question, no longer active, but it came to be on the top when I searched Google.
While all advise is very good, I can't believe no one simply answered:
Date date = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis());
System.out.println(date);
Which returns effectively, today's date.
Why the string manipulation?
Can you not just set the values you need on the Calendar object before converting to a Date using getTime()?
Another vote for JodaTime.
java.util.Date and Calendar are so bad they are broken. (And SimpleDateFormat is rubbish too!)
For what it's worth, Java 7 will include a new date time library based strongly around JodaTime.