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How to compare date in firestore [duplicate]

I'm working with a date in this format: yyyy-mm-dd.
How can I increment this date by one day?

Something like this should do the trick:
String dt = "2008-01-01"; // Start date
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
c.setTime(sdf.parse(dt));
c.add(Calendar.DATE, 1); // number of days to add
dt = sdf.format(c.getTime()); // dt is now the new date

UPDATE (May 2021): This is a really outdated answer for old, old Java. For Java 8 and above, see https://stackoverflow.com/a/20906602/314283
Java does appear to be well behind the eight-ball compared to C#. This utility method shows the way to do in Java SE 6 using the Calendar.add method (presumably the only easy way).
public class DateUtil
{
public static Date addDays(Date date, int days)
{
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTime(date);
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, days); //minus number would decrement the days
return cal.getTime();
}
}
To add one day, per the question asked, call it as follows:
String sourceDate = "2012-02-29";
SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
Date myDate = format.parse(sourceDate);
myDate = DateUtil.addDays(myDate, 1);

java.time
On Java 8 and later, the java.time package makes this pretty much automatic. (Tutorial)
Assuming String input and output:
import java.time.LocalDate;
public class DateIncrementer {
static public String addOneDay(String date) {
return LocalDate.parse(date).plusDays(1).toString();
}
}

I prefer to use DateUtils from Apache. Check this http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-lang/javadocs/api-2.6/org/apache/commons/lang/time/DateUtils.html. It is handy especially when you have to use it multiple places in your project and would not want to write your one liner method for this.
The API says:
addDays(Date date, int amount) : Adds a number of days to a date returning a new object.
Note that it returns a new Date object and does not make changes to the previous one itself.

SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat( "yyyy-MM-dd" );
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTime( dateFormat.parse( inputString ) );
cal.add( Calendar.DATE, 1 );

Construct a Calendar object and call add(Calendar.DATE, 1);

Java 8 added a new API for working with dates and times.
With Java 8 you can use the following lines of code:
// parse date from yyyy-mm-dd pattern
LocalDate januaryFirst = LocalDate.parse("2014-01-01");
// add one day
LocalDate januarySecond = januaryFirst.plusDays(1);

Take a look at Joda-Time (https://www.joda.org/joda-time/).
DateTimeFormatter parser = ISODateTimeFormat.date();
DateTime date = parser.parseDateTime(dateString);
String nextDay = parser.print(date.plusDays(1));

Please note that this line adds 24 hours:
d1.getTime() + 1 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000
but this line adds one day
cal.add( Calendar.DATE, 1 );
On days with a daylight savings time change (25 or 23 hours) you will get different results!

you can use Simple java.util lib
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTime(yourDate);
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, 1);
yourDate = cal.getTime();

Date today = new Date();
SimpleDateFormat formattedDate = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
c.add(Calendar.DATE, 1); // number of days to add
String tomorrow = (String)(formattedDate.format(c.getTime()));
System.out.println("Tomorrows date is " + tomorrow);
This will give tomorrow's date. c.add(...) parameters could be changed from 1 to another number for appropriate increment.

If you are using Java 8, then do it like this.
LocalDate sourceDate = LocalDate.of(2017, Month.MAY, 27); // Source Date
LocalDate destDate = sourceDate.plusDays(1); // Adding a day to source date.
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd"); // Setting date format
String destDate = destDate.format(formatter)); // End date
If you want to use SimpleDateFormat, then do it like this.
String sourceDate = "2017-05-27"; // Start date
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.setTime(sdf.parse(sourceDate)); // parsed date and setting to calendar
calendar.add(Calendar.DATE, 1); // number of days to add
String destDate = sdf.format(calendar.getTime()); // End date

Since Java 1.5 TimeUnit.DAYS.toMillis(1) looks more clean to me.
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat( "yyyy-MM-dd" );
Date day = dateFormat.parse(string);
// add the day
Date dayAfter = new Date(day.getTime() + TimeUnit.DAYS.toMillis(1));

long timeadj = 24*60*60*1000;
Date newDate = new Date (oldDate.getTime ()+timeadj);
This takes the number of milliseconds since epoch from oldDate and adds 1 day worth of milliseconds then uses the Date() public constructor to create a date using the new value. This method allows you to add 1 day, or any number of hours/minutes, not only whole days.

In Java 8 simple way to do is:
Date.from(Instant.now().plusSeconds(SECONDS_PER_DAY))

It's very simple, trying to explain in a simple word.
get the today's date as below
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
System.out.println(calendar.getTime());// print today's date
calendar.add(Calendar.DATE, 1);
Now set one day ahead with this date by calendar.add method which takes (constant, value). Here constant could be DATE, hours, min, sec etc. and value is the value of constant. Like for one day, ahead constant is Calendar.DATE and its value are 1 because we want one day ahead value.
System.out.println(calendar.getTime());// print modified date which is tomorrow's date
Thanks

startCalendar.add(Calendar.DATE, 1); //Add 1 Day to the current Calender

In java 8 you can use java.time.LocalDate
LocalDate parsedDate = LocalDate.parse("2015-10-30"); //Parse date from String
LocalDate addedDate = parsedDate.plusDays(1); //Add one to the day field
You can convert in into java.util.Date object as follows.
Date date = Date.from(addedDate.atStartOfDay(ZoneId.systemDefault()).toInstant());
You can formate LocalDate into a String as follows.
String str = addedDate.format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd"));

With Java SE 8 or higher you should use the new Date/Time API
int days = 7;
LocalDate dateRedeemed = LocalDate.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd/MM/YYYY");
String newDate = dateRedeemed.plusDays(days).format(formatter);
System.out.println(newDate);
If you need to convert from java.util.Date to java.time.LocalDate, you may use this method.
public LocalDate asLocalDate(Date date) {
Instant instant = date.toInstant();
ZonedDateTime zdt = instant.atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault());
return zdt.toLocalDate();
}
With a version prior to Java SE 8 you may use Joda-Time
Joda-Time provides a quality replacement for the Java date and time
classes and is the de facto standard date and time library for Java
prior to Java SE 8
int days = 7;
DateTime dateRedeemed = DateTime.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("dd/MM/uuuu");
String newDate = dateRedeemed.plusDays(days).toString(formatter);
System.out.println(newDate);

Apache Commons already has this DateUtils.addDays(Date date, int amount) http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-lang/apidocs/org/apache/commons/lang3/time/DateUtils.html#addDays%28java.util.Date,%20int%29 which you use or you could go with the JodaTime to make it more cleaner.

Just pass date in String and number of next days
private String getNextDate(String givenDate,int noOfDays) {
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
String nextDaysDate = null;
try {
cal.setTime(dateFormat.parse(givenDate));
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, noOfDays);
nextDaysDate = dateFormat.format(cal.getTime());
} catch (ParseException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(GR_TravelRepublic.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
}finally{
dateFormat = null;
cal = null;
}
return nextDaysDate;
}

If you want to add a single unit of time and you expect that other fields to be incremented as well, you can safely use add method. See example below:
SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.set(1970,Calendar.DECEMBER,31);
System.out.println(simpleDateFormat1.format(cal.getTime()));
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, 1);
System.out.println(simpleDateFormat1.format(cal.getTime()));
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, -1);
System.out.println(simpleDateFormat1.format(cal.getTime()));
Will Print:
1970-12-31
1971-01-01
1970-12-31

Use the DateFormat API to convert the String into a Date object, then use the Calendar API to add one day. Let me know if you want specific code examples, and I can update my answer.

Try this method:
public static Date addDay(int day) {
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.setTime(new Date());
calendar.add(Calendar.DATE, day);
return calendar.getTime();
}

It's simple actually.
One day contains 86400000 milliSeconds.
So first you get the current time in millis from The System by usingSystem.currentTimeMillis() then
add the 84000000 milliSeconds and use the Date Class to generate A date format for the milliseconds.
Example
String Today = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis()).toString();
String Today will be 2019-05-9
String Tommorow = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() + 86400000).toString();
String Tommorow will be 2019-05-10
String DayAfterTommorow = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() + (2 * 86400000)).toString();
String DayAfterTommorow will be 2019-05-11

You can use this package from "org.apache.commons.lang3.time":
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
Date myNewDate = DateUtils.addDays(myDate, 4);
Date yesterday = DateUtils.addDays(myDate, -1);
String formatedDate = sdf.format(myNewDate);

If you are using Java 8, java.time.LocalDate and java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter can make this work quite simple.
public String nextDate(String date){
LocalDate parsedDate = LocalDate.parse(date);
LocalDate addedDate = parsedDate.plusDays(1);
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-mm-dd");
return addedDate.format(formatter);
}

The highest voted answer uses legacy java.util date-time API which was the correct thing to do in 2009 when the question was asked. In March 2014, java.time API supplanted the error-prone legacy date-time API. Since then, it is strongly recommended to use this modern date-time API.
I'm working with a date in this format: yyyy-mm-dd
You have used the wrong letter for the month, irrespective of whether you are using the legacy parsing/formatting API or the modern one. The letter m is used for minute-of-hour and the correct letter for month-of-year is M.
yyyy-MM-dd is the default format of java.time.LocalDate
The java.time API is based on ISO 8601 standards and therefore it does not require specifying a DateTimeFormatter explicitly to parse a date-time string if it is already in ISO 8601 format. Similarly, the toString implementation of a java.time type returns a string in ISO 8601 format. Check LocalDate#parse and LocalDate#toString for more information.
Ways to increment a local date by one day
There are three options:
LocalDate#plusDays(long daysToAdd)
LocalDate#plus(long amountToAdd, TemporalUnit unit): It has got some additional capabilities e.g. you can use it to increment a local date by days, weeks, months, years etc.
LocalDate#plus(TemporalAmount amountToAdd): You can specify a Period (or any other type implementing the TemporalAmount) to add.
Demo:
import java.time.Instant;
import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.Period;
import java.time.temporal.ChronoUnit;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Parsing
LocalDate ldt = LocalDate.parse("2020-10-20");
System.out.println(ldt);
// Incrementing by one day
LocalDate oneDayLater = ldt.plusDays(1);
System.out.println(oneDayLater);
// Alternatively
oneDayLater = ldt.plus(1, ChronoUnit.DAYS);
System.out.println(oneDayLater);
oneDayLater = ldt.plus(Period.ofDays(1));
System.out.println(oneDayLater);
String desiredString = oneDayLater.toString();
System.out.println(desiredString);
}
}
Output:
2020-10-20
2020-10-21
2020-10-21
2020-10-21
2020-10-21
How to switch from the legacy to the modern date-time API?
You can switch from the legacy to the modern date-time API using Date#toInstant on a java-util-date instance. Once you have an Instant, you can easily obtain other date-time types of java.time API. An Instant represents a moment in time and is independent of a time-zone i.e. it represents a date-time in UTC (often displayed as Z which stands for Zulu-time and has a ZoneOffset of +00:00).
Demo:
import java.time.Instant;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.OffsetDateTime;
import java.time.ZoneId;
import java.time.ZoneOffset;
import java.time.ZonedDateTime;
import java.util.Date;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Date date = new Date();
Instant instant = date.toInstant();
System.out.println(instant);
ZonedDateTime zdt = instant.atZone(ZoneId.of("Asia/Kolkata"));
System.out.println(zdt);
OffsetDateTime odt = instant.atOffset(ZoneOffset.of("+05:30"));
System.out.println(odt);
// Alternatively, using time-zone
odt = instant.atZone(ZoneId.of("Asia/Kolkata")).toOffsetDateTime();
System.out.println(odt);
LocalDateTime ldt = LocalDateTime.ofInstant(instant, ZoneId.of("Asia/Kolkata"));
System.out.println(ldt);
// Alternatively,
ldt = instant.atZone(ZoneId.of("Asia/Kolkata")).toLocalDateTime();
System.out.println(ldt);
}
}
Output:
2022-11-12T12:52:18.016Z
2022-11-12T18:22:18.016+05:30[Asia/Kolkata]
2022-11-12T18:22:18.016+05:30
2022-11-12T18:22:18.016+05:30
2022-11-12T18:22:18.016
2022-11-12T18:22:18.016
Learn more about the modern Date-Time API from Trail: Date Time.

Let's clarify the use case: You want to do calendar arithmetic and start/end with a java.util.Date.
Some approaches:
Convert to string and back with SimpleDateFormat: This is an inefficient solution.
Convert to LocalDate: You would lose any time-of-day information.
Convert to LocalDateTime: This involves more steps and you need to worry about timezone.
Convert to epoch with Date.getTime(): This is efficient but you are calculating with milliseconds.
Consider using java.time.Instant:
Date _now = new Date();
Instant _instant = _now.toInstant().minus(5, ChronoUnit.DAYS);
Date _newDate = Date.from(_instant);

You can do this just in one line.
e.g to add 5 days
Date newDate = Date.from(Date().toInstant().plus(5, ChronoUnit.DAYS));
to subtract 5 days
Date newDate = Date.from(Date().toInstant().minus(5, ChronoUnit.DAYS));

how to get dateTime based on hour and minute

I have hour and minute in edittext.(say for example 10:50)
how to get today's DateTime(like yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss) based on above edit text value 10:50
UPDATE:
this worked for me:
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR, selectedHour);
calendar.set(Calendar.MINUTE, selectedMinute);
thank you all

EDIT: take a look at this other stackoverflow post about why one should prefer using the Java 8 java.time classes over Calendar or Date
In your instance, in order to parse an input in the form "HH:mm", you can create a DateTimeFormatter and use the static method LocalTime.parse(inputString, dateTimeFormatter) to get a LocalTime object
For example:
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("HH:mm");
LocalTime time = LocalTime.parse(timeInputString, formatter);
Take a look at the Java documentation for DateTimeFormatter for more information on the patterns for years, days, or whatever.
If you're wanting to get both the date and time from a string such as "10:50", you won't be able to using the LocalDateTime.parse method because it can't obtain the date from an "HH:mm" string. So the way around this is to create the time off of LocalTime.parse as shown above, and then get the current date using the static method LocalDate.now(); And then combine those two results into a LocalDateTime object using it's static factory method LocalDateTime.of(date, time)
For example:
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("HH:mm");
LocalTime time = LocalTime.parse(timeInputString, formatter);
LocalDate date = LocalDate.now();
LocalDateTime dateTime = LocalDateTime.of(date, time);

Calendar cal = new Calendar.getInstance();// today's date
cal.set(Calendar.HOUR, 10);
cal.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 50);
cal.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
System.out.println(cal.getTime()); //see the result
now , it's up to you to put them directly in cal.set with variables (not manually writing 10 ,50 , it's up to your creativity )
And this answer is with Calendar because you tagged Calendar in your question , you can also use something else than Calender

you just need use this function.
// hourMintText = "hh:mm"
private String getTodayAsFormat(String hourMintText){
String[] hourMinAsArray = hourMintText.split(":");
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, Integer.parseInt(hourMinAsArray[0]));
calendar.set(Calendar.MINUTE, Integer.parseInt(hourMinAsArray[1]));
SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm", Locale.ENGLISH);
return simpleDateFormat.format(calendar.getTimeInMillis());
}

Try this:
String dateTime = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy hh-mm-ss aa", Locale.getDefault())
.format(new Date());

How to add current time to a previous date in java?

I was trying to add current time into previous date. But it was adding in current date with time not with previous date.
see my bellow code:
Date startUserDate = ;//this is my previous date object;
startUserDate.setTime(new Date().getTime());// here i'm trying to add current time in previous date.
System.out.println("current time with previous Date :"+startUserDate);
In previous date there is no time and i want to add current time in previous date.I can do this, please help me out.

Use calendar object
Get instance of calendar object and set your past time to it
Date startUserDate = ;
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.settime(startUserDate);
Create new calendar instance
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.settime(new Date());
format the date to get string representation of time of current date
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss");
String currentdate = sdf.format(cal.getTime());
split that string to get hour minute and second object
String hh = expiry.split(":")[0];
String mm = expiry.split(":")[1];
String ss = expiry.split(":")[2];
add it to the previous calendar object
calendar .add(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, hh);
calendar .add(Calendar.MINUTE, mm);
calendar .add(Calendar.SECOND, ss);
this date will have current time added to your date
Date newDate = calendar.getTime;

Use Calendar:
first set the date/time of the first calendar object to the old date
object use as second Calendar object to set the current time on the
first calendar object then convert it back to date
as follow:
//E.g. for startUserDate
Date startUserDate = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() - (24L * 60L * 60L * 1000L) - (60L * 60L * 1000L));//minus 1 day and 1 hour
Calendar calDateThen = Calendar.getInstance();
Calendar calTimeNow = Calendar.getInstance();
calDateThen.setTime(startUserDate);
calDateThen.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, calTimeNow.get(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY));
calDateThen.set(Calendar.MINUTE, calTimeNow.get(Calendar.MINUTE));
calDateThen.set(Calendar.SECOND, calTimeNow.get(Calendar.SECOND));
startUserDate = calDateThen.getTime();
System.out.println(startUserDate);
The second Calendar object calTimeNow can be replaced with Calendar.getInstance() where it is used.

You can do it using DateFormat and String, here's the solution that you need:
Code:
DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
String timeString = df.format(new Date()).substring(10); // 10 is the beginIndex of time here
DateFormat df2 = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy");
String startUserDateString = df2.format(startUserDate);
startUserDateString = startUserDateString+" "+timeString;
// you will get this format "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss"
//then parse the new date here
startUserDate = df.parse(startUserDateString);
Explanation:
Just convert the current date to a string and then extract the time from it using .substring() method, then convert your userDate to a string concatenate the taken time String to it and finally parse this date to get what you need.
Example:
You can see it working in this ideone DEMO.
Which takes 02/20/2002 in input and returns 02/20/2002 04:36:14 as result.

java.time
I recommend that you use java.time, the modern Java date and time API, for your date and time work.
ZoneId zone = ZoneId.systemDefault();
LocalDate somePreviousDate = LocalDate.of(2018, Month.NOVEMBER, 22);
LocalTime timeOfDayNow = LocalTime.now(zone);
LocalDateTime dateTime = somePreviousDate.atTime(timeOfDayNow);
System.out.println(dateTime);
When I ran the code just now — 16:25 in my time zone — I got this output:
2018-11-22T16:25:53.253892
If you’ve got an old-fashioned Date object, start by converting to a modern Instant and perform further conversion from there:
Date somePreviousDate = new Date(1_555_555_555_555L);
LocalDate date = somePreviousDate.toInstant().atZone(zone).toLocalDate();
LocalTime timeOfDayNow = LocalTime.now(zone);
LocalDateTime dateTime = date.atTime(timeOfDayNow);
2019-04-18T16:25:53.277947
If conversely you need the result as an old-fashioned Date, also convert over Instant:
Instant i = dateTime.atZone(zone).toInstant();
Date oldfasionedDate = Date.from(i);
System.out.println(oldfasionedDate);
Thu Nov 22 16:25:53 CET 2018
Link
Oracle tutorial: Date Time explaining how to use java.time.

The getTime method returns the number of milliseconds since 1970/01/01 so to get the time portion of the date you can either use a Calendar object or simply use modula arithmetic (using the above milliseconds value and the MAX millseconds in a day) to extract the time portion of the Date.
Then when you have the time you need to add it to the second date,
but seriously, use http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/Calendar.html
and use things like get (HOUR) and get (MINUTE) etc. which then you can use with set (HOUR, val)

You need to use Calendar class to perform addition to Dateobject. Date's setTime() will set that time in Date object but not add i.e it will overwrite previous date. new Date().getTime() will not return only time portion but time since Epoch. Also, how did you manipulated , startUserDate to not have any time (I mean , was it via Calendar or Formatter) ?
See Answer , Time Portion of Date to calculate only time portion,
long MILLIS_PER_DAY = 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000;
Date now = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
long timePortion = now.getTime() % MILLIS_PER_DAY;
then you can use something like, cal.add(Calendar.MILLISECOND, (int)timePortion); where cal is Calendar object corresponding to your startUserDate in your code.

Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.setTime(startUserDate );
//new date for current time
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss");
String currentdate = sdf.format(new Date());
String hhStr = currentdate.split(":")[0];
String mmStr = currentdate.split(":")[1];
String ssStr = currentdate.split(":")[2];
Integer hh = 0;
Integer mm = 0;
Integer ss = 0;
try {
hh = Integer.parseInt(hhStr);
mm = Integer.parseInt(mmStr);
ss = Integer.parseInt(ssStr);
}catch(Exception e) {e.printStackTrace();}
calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, hh);
calendar.set(Calendar.MINUTE, mm);
calendar.set(Calendar.SECOND, ss);
startUserDate = calendar.getTime();

How to reduce one month from current date and stored in date variable using java?

How to reduce one month from current date and want to sore in java.util.Date variable
im using this code but it's shows error in 2nd line
java.util.Date da = new Date();
da.add(Calendar.MONTH, -1); //error
How to store this date in java.util.Date variable?

Use Calendar:
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.add(Calendar.MONTH, -1);
Date result = cal.getTime();

Starting from Java 8, the suggested way is to use the Date-Time API rather than Calendar.
If you want a Date object to be returned:
Date date = Date.from(ZonedDateTime.now().minusMonths(1).toInstant());
If you don't need exactly a Date object, you can use the classes directly, provided by the package, even to get dates in other time-zones:
ZonedDateTime dateInUTC = ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId.of("Pacific/Auckland")).minusMonths(1);

Calendar calNow = Calendar.getInstance()
// adding -1 month
calNow.add(Calendar.MONTH, -1);
// fetching updated time
Date dateBeforeAMonth = calNow.getTime();

you can use Calendar
java.util.Date da = new Date();
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTime(da);
cal.add(Calendar.MONTH, -1);
da = cal.getTime();

Using new java.time package in Java8 and Java9
import java.time.LocalDate;
LocalDate mydate = LocalDate.now(); // Or whatever you want
mydate = mydate.minusMonths(1);
The advantage to using this method is that you avoid all the issues about varying month lengths and have more flexibility in adjusting dates and ranges. The Local part also is Timezone smart so it's easy to convert between them.
As an aside, using java.time you can also get the day of the week, day of the month, all days up to the last of the month, all days up to a certain day of the week, etc.
mydate.plusMonths(1);
mydate.with(TemporalAdjusters.next(DayOfWeek.SUNDAY)).getDayOfMonth();
mydate.with(TemporalAdjusters.lastDayOfMonth());

Using JodaTime :
Date date = new DateTime().minusMonths(1).toDate();
JodaTime provides a convenient API for date manipulation.
Note that similar Date API will be introduced in JDK8 with the JSR310.

You can also use the DateUtils from apache common. The library also supports adding Hour, Minute, etc.
Date date = DateUtils.addMonths(new Date(), -1)

raduce 1 month of JDF
Date dateTo = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd").parse(jdfMeTo.getJulianDate());
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTime(dateTo);
cal.add(Calendar.MONTH, -1);
Date dateOf = cal.getTime();
Log.i("dateOf", dateOf.getTime() + "");
jdfMeOf.setJulianDate(cal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR), cal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH),
cal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK_IN_MONTH));

How to get previous date in java

I have a String Object in format yyyyMMdd.Is there a simple way to get a String with previous date in the same format?
Thanks

I would rewrite these answers a bit.
You can use
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
// Get a Date object from the date string
Date myDate = dateFormat.parse(dateString);
// this calculation may skip a day (Standard-to-Daylight switch)...
//oneDayBefore = new Date(myDate.getTime() - (24 * 3600000));
// if the Date->time xform always places the time as YYYYMMDD 00:00:00
// this will be safer.
oneDayBefore = new Date(myDate.getTime() - 2);
String result = dateFormat.format(oneDayBefore);
To get the same results as those that are being computed by using Calendar.

Here is how to do it without Joda Time:
import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;
public class Main {
public static String previousDateString(String dateString)
throws ParseException {
// Create a date formatter using your format string
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
// Parse the given date string into a Date object.
// Note: This can throw a ParseException.
Date myDate = dateFormat.parse(dateString);
// Use the Calendar class to subtract one day
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.setTime(myDate);
calendar.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR, -1);
// Use the date formatter to produce a formatted date string
Date previousDate = calendar.getTime();
String result = dateFormat.format(previousDate);
return result;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
String dateString = "20100316";
try {
// This will print 20100315
System.out.println(previousDateString(dateString));
} catch (ParseException e) {
System.out.println("Invalid date string");
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

You can use:
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
//subtracting a day
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, -1);
SimpleDateFormat s = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
String result = s.format(new Date(cal.getTimeInMillis()));

It's much harder than it should be in Java without library support.
You can parse the given String into a Date object using an instance of the SimpleDateFormat class.
Then you can use Calendar's add() to subtract one day.
Then you can use SimpleDateFormat's format() to get the formatted date as a String.
The Joda Time library a much easier API.

This is an old question, and most existing answers pre-date Java 8. Hence, adding this answer for Java 8+ users.
Java 8 introduced new APIs for Date and Time to replace poorly designed, and difficult to use java.util.Date and java.util.Calendar classes.
To deal with dates without time zones, LocalDate class can be used.
String dateString = "20200301";
// BASIC_ISO_DATE is "YYYYMMDD"
// See below link to docs for details
LocalDate date = LocalDate.parse(dateString, DateTimeFormatter.BASIC_ISO_DATE);
// get date for previous day
LocalDate previousDate = date.minusDays(1);
System.out.println(previousDate.format(DateTimeFormatter.BASIC_ISO_DATE));
// prints 20200229
Docs:
DateTimeFormatter.BASIC_ISO_DATE
LocalDate

use SimpleDateFormat to parse the String to Date, then subtract one day. after that convert the date to String again.

HI,
I want to get 20 days previous, to current date,
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
Calendar xdate = (Calendar)cal.clone();
xdate.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR, - 20);
System.out.println(" Current Time "+ cal.getTime().toString());
System.out.println(" X Time "+ xdate.getTime().toString());
I had some UN Expected result, When i tried on Jan 11th,
Current Time Tue Jan 11 12:32:16 IST 2011
X Time Sat Dec 11 12:32:16 IST 2010
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
Calendar xdate = (Calendar)cal.clone();
xdate.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR,cal.getTime().getDate() - 20 );
System.out.println(" Current Time "+ cal.getTime().toString());
System.out.println(" X Time "+ xdate.getTime().toString());
This code solved my Problem.

If you are willing to use the 3rd-party utility, Joda-Time, here is some example code using Joda-Time 2.3 on Java 7. Takes just two lines.
String dateAsString = "20130101";
org.joda.time.LocalDate someDay = org.joda.time.LocalDate.parse(dateAsString, org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormat.forPattern("yyyymmdd"));
org.joda.time.LocalDate dayBefore = someDay.minusDays(1);
See the results:
System.out.println("someDay: " + someDay );
System.out.println("dayBefore: " + dayBefore );
When run:
someDay: 2013-01-01
dayBefore: 2012-12-31
This code assumes you have no time zone. Lacking a time zone is rarely a good thing, but if that's your case, that code may work for you. If you do have a time zone, use a DateTime object instead of LocalDate.
About that example code and about Joda-Time…
// © 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

you can create a generic method which takes
- Date (String) (current date or from date),
- Format (String) (your desired fromat) and
- Days (number of days before(-ve value) or after(+ve value))
as input and return your desired date in required format.
following method can resolve this problem.
public String getRequiredDate(String date , String format ,int days){
try{
final Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTime(new SimpleDateFormat(format).parse(date));
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, days);
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(format);
date = sdf.format(cal.getTime());
}
catch(Exception ex){
logger.error(ex.getMessage(), ex);
}
return date;
}
}

In Java 8 we can use directly for this purpose
LocalDate todayDate = LocalDate.now();
By default it provide the format of 2021-06-07, with the help of formater we can change this also
LocalDate previousDate = todayDate.minusDays(5);

Calendar cal2 = Calendar.getInstance();
cal2.add(Calendar.YEAR, -1);
Date dt2 = new Date(cal2.getTimeInMillis());
System.out.println(dt2);