Error while calculating java Date difference - java

Calculating the difference between two dates (java.util.Date) in terms of no. of days look like very simple and we can find different ways to do that. I used the following code to calculate the date difference:
public static long daysBetween(Calendar startDate, Calendar endDate) {
Calendar date = (Calendar) startDate.clone();
long daysBetween = 0;
while (date.before(endDate)) {
date.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1);
daysBetween++;
}
return daysBetween;
}
In main(), I used the following two dates :
Calendar c1 = Calendar.getInstance();
c1.set(2011, 1, 1);
Calendar c2 = Calendar.getInstance();
c2.set(2011, 1, 31);
long difference = daysBetween(c1, c2); //
But the value of the variable difference is not consistent. It is sometimes 30 and sometimes 31. So, why that might have happened.
Is there any solution to use the method results a consistent output ?

You're setting the date part of the calendars, but not the time part.
Sometimes the clock will tick between the calls to getInstance() and sometimes it won't, hence the inconsistency.
Options:
Set the time as well as the date, e.g. to midnight
Use a better date/time library - Joda Time - which has a more suitable representation (LocalDate). An important moral here is that if you can find a type which represents the exact information you have, and nothing else, that's likely to be a good fit and cause fewer complications.
Using LocalDate, you wouldn't even have to do the loop as Joda Time has good support for computing the differences between two values anyway.
LocalDate date1 = new LocalDate(2011, 1, 1);
LocalDate date2 = new LocalDate(2011, 1, 31);
Days period = Days.daysBetween(days1, days2);
int days = period.getDays();

You are only setting the year, month and day. The hours, minutes, seconds and milli-seconds are the current time (and thus different every time you run it)
I suggest you use Joda Time's LocalDate instead as it appears to does exactly what you want.

Related

Test a date within a day intervall range

I have a date and a number and want to check if this date and this number occurs in a list of other dates within:
+-20 date intervall with the same number
so for example 1, 1.1.2013 and 1,3.1.2013 should reuturn false.
I tried to implement the method something like that:
private List<EventDate> dayIntervall(List<EventDate> eventList) throws Exception {
List<EventDate> resultList = new ArrayList<EventDate>();
for (int i = 0; i < eventList.size(); i++) {
String string = eventList.get(i).getDate();
Date equalDate = new SimpleDateFormat("dd.MM.yyyy", Locale.GERMAN).parse(string);
for (int j = 0; j < eventList.size(); j++) {
String string1 = eventList.get(i).getDate();
Date otherDate = new SimpleDateFormat("dd.MM.yyyy", Locale.GERMAN).parse(string1);
if (check number of i with number of j && check Date) {
//do magic
}
}
}
return resultList;
}
The construction of the iteration method is not that hard. What is hard for me is the date intervall checking part. I tried it like that:
boolean isWithinRange(Date testDate, Date days) {
return !(testDate.before(days) || testDate.after(days));
}
However that does not work because days are not takes as days. Any suggestions on how to fix that?
I really appreciate your answer!
You question is difficult to follow. But given its title, perhaps this will help…
Span Of Time In Joda-Time
The Joda-Time library provides a trio of classes to represent a span of time: Interval, Period, and Duration.
Interval
An Interval object has specific endpoints that lie on the timeline of the Universe. A handy contains method tells if a DateTime object occurs within those endpoints. The beginning endpoint in inclusive while the last endpoint is exclusive.
Time Zones
Note that time zones are important, for handling Daylight Saving Time and other anomalies, and for handling start-of-day. Keep in mind that while a java.util.Date seems like it has a time zone but does not, a DateTime truly does know its own time zone.
Sample Code
Some code off the top of my head (untested)…
DateTimeZone timeZone = DateTimeZone.forID( "Europe/Berlin" );
DateTime dateTime = new DateTime( yourDateGoesHere, timeZone );
Interval interval = new Interval( dateTime.minusDays( 20 ), dateTime.plusDays( 20 ) );
boolean didEventOccurDuringInterval = interval.contains( someOtherDateTime );
Whole Days
If you want whole days, call the withTimeAtStartOfDay method to get first moment of the day. In this case, you probably need to add 21 rather than 20 days for the ending point. As I said above, the end point is exclusive. So if you want whole days, you need the first moment after the time period you care about. You need the moment after the stroke of midnight. If this does not make sense, see my answers to other questions here and here.
Note that Joda-Time includes some "midnight"-related methods and classes. Those are no longer recommended by the Joda team. The "withTimeAtStartOfDay" method takes their place.
DateTime start = dateTime.minusDays( 20 ).withTimeAtStartOfDay();
DateTime stop = dateTime.plusDays( 21 ).withTimeAtStartOfDay(); // 21, not 20, for whole days.
Interval interval = new Interval( start, stop );
You should avoid java.util.Date if at all possible. Using the backport of ThreeTen (the long awaited replacement date/time API coming in JDK8), you can get the number of days between two dates like so:
int daysBetween(LocalDate start, LocalDate end) {
return Math.abs(start.periodUntil(end).getDays());
}
Does that help?
You can get the number of dates in between the 2 dates and compare with your days parameter. Using Joda-Time API it is relatively an easy task: How do I calculate the difference between two dates?.
Code:
SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd.MM.yyyy", Locale.GERMAN);
Date startDate = format.parse("1.1.2013");
Date endDate = format.parse("3.1.2013");
Days d = Days.daysBetween(new DateTime(startDate), new DateTime(endDate));
System.out.println(d.getDays());
Gives,
2
This is possible using Calendar class as well:
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTime(startDate);
System.out.println(cal.fieldDifference(endDate, Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR));
Gives,
2
This 2 can now be compared to your actual value (20).

Time and Calendar

How do I add/subtract two time objects. I have two time objects (arrival and departure) in format of "yyyy/MMM/dd HH:mm:ss". I need to print the difference between departure and arrival time. I am generating time ad below:
public String getTime() {
Calendar currentDate = Calendar.getInstance();
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MMM/dd HH:mm:ss");
return formatter.format(currentDate.getTime());
}
Can I get time in mills and than format it when I needed to print ?
Take a look at Joda Time library.
You can easily subtract and add DateTime and find out interval easily :
// interval from start to end
DateTime start = new DateTime(2004, 12, 25, 0, 0, 0, 0);
DateTime end = new DateTime(2005, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0);
Interval interval = new Interval(start, end);
something like this.....
public long getTimeDiff() throws Exception {
String arrival = "2011/Nov/10 13:15:24";
String departure = "2011/Jan/10 13:15:24";
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MMM/dd HH:mm:ss");
java.util.Date date1 = formatter.parse(arrival);
java.util.Date date2 = formatter.parse(departure);
return date2.getTime() - date1.getTime();
}
Convert them to date and then to long and subtract, that would give the time difference in milli seconds,
Date d1 = DateFormat.parse(time1);
Date d2 = DateFormat.parse(time2);
long diffInMilliSeconds = d1.getTime()-d2.getTime();
You can get time in milliseconds for both calendars using getTime method. When you can convert the result of subtraction to measure units that you need. If you're going to work with time/duration seriously when take a look at Joda library
Upd. You should call getTime twice. First object being returned is Date, when you call getTime on Date you get long value.
I would convert the two time/Date objects in milliseconds. Then i would subtract them (we are dealing with longs).
Then i would create a Date object from the resulting long value. After that you can construct a Calendar with Calendar.setDate(Date).
Regards!
Yes, start with your Dates and use getTime() to convert to milliseconds (or getTimeInMillis() for your Calendars). That give you long values you can subtract. That's the easy part.
Then you can convert these milliseconds into a readable format yourself. But it probably makes sense to use a packaged library to do it.
Some folks like the Joda library for these types of date calculations. I find Commons Lang is fantastic. It provides DateUtils which is useful if you find you want to perform calculations like rounding or truncating your dates to the nearest minute or hour etc. The part that will be most useful to you is the DurationFormatUtils class which gives you functions like formatDurationHMS to format into nice Hour:Minute:Second display and formatDurationWords to get text (fancy!) or other similar functions to easily format your milliseconds into a nicely human-readable format.

Comparing only the time component of Date

Consider the following code to only determine if the time component of one Date object is before the time component of another Date object:
private boolean validStartStopTime( Date start, Date stop ) {
Calendar startCal = Calendar.getInstance();
Calendar stopCal = Calendar.getInstance();
startCal.clear();
stopCal.clear();
startCal.setTime( start );
stopCal.setTime( stop );
startCal.set( Calendar.YEAR, 2011 );
stopCal.set( Calendar.YEAR, 2011 );
startCal.set( Calendar.MONTH, 1 );
stopCal.set( Calendar.MONTH, 1 );
startCal.set( Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR, 1 );
stopCal.set( Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR, 1 );
return startCal.before( stopCal );
}
Would this insure that time comparison is correct? Is there a better alternative (Joda is not an option)? I believe that this is equivalent to setting the Calendar objects to current date/time and manually copying over the hour, minutes, and milliseconds component. You can assume that timezone are the same.
EDIT: To clarify what I mean by comparing only the time component of a Date object. I mean that when looking specifically at the time portion, the start time is before the stop time. The date portion is ABSOLUTELY irrelevant (in that start="Jan 2 20011 10AM" and end="Jan 1 2011 11AM" is perfectly fine), if I had a choice I'd simply use something that contained just the time but a Date object is what I'm given. I'd like to not write a sequence of if-else which is why I have the approach above but I welcome a cleaner/better approach.
Your code should work fine. You could also format just the time components in a zero-based string notation and compare them lexicographically:
public static boolean timeIsBefore(Date d1, Date d2) {
DateFormat f = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss.SSS");
return f.format(d1).compareTo(f.format(d2)) < 0;
}
[Edit]
This is assuming that the dates have the same timezone offset. If not you'll have to adjust them manually beforehand (or as part of this function).
There are 86,400,000 milliseconds in a day, why not just use that to figure it out?
You could just mod timeInMilliseconds with that number and compare the results.

How to compare two Dates without the time portion?

I would like to have a compareTo method that ignores the time portion of a java.util.Date. I guess there are a number of ways to solve this. What's the simplest way?
Update: while Joda Time was a fine recommendation at the time, use the java.time library from Java 8+ instead where possible.
My preference is to use Joda Time which makes this incredibly easy:
DateTime first = ...;
DateTime second = ...;
LocalDate firstDate = first.toLocalDate();
LocalDate secondDate = second.toLocalDate();
return firstDate.compareTo(secondDate);
EDIT: As noted in comments, if you use DateTimeComparator.getDateOnlyInstance() it's even simpler :)
// TODO: consider extracting the comparator to a field.
return DateTimeComparator.getDateOnlyInstance().compare(first, second);
("Use Joda Time" is the basis of almost all SO questions which ask about java.util.Date or java.util.Calendar. It's a thoroughly superior API. If you're doing anything significant with dates/times, you should really use it if you possibly can.)
If you're absolutely forced to use the built in API, you should create an instance of Calendar with the appropriate date and using the appropriate time zone. You could then set each field in each calendar out of hour, minute, second and millisecond to 0, and compare the resulting times. Definitely icky compared with the Joda solution though :)
The time zone part is important: java.util.Date is always based on UTC. In most cases where I've been interested in a date, that's been a date in a specific time zone. That on its own will force you to use Calendar or Joda Time (unless you want to account for the time zone yourself, which I don't recommend.)
Quick reference for android developers
//Add joda library dependency to your build.gradle file
dependencies {
...
implementation 'joda-time:joda-time:2.9.9'
}
Sample code (example)
DateTimeComparator dateTimeComparator = DateTimeComparator.getDateOnlyInstance();
Date myDateOne = ...;
Date myDateTwo = ...;
int retVal = dateTimeComparator.compare(myDateOne, myDateTwo);
if(retVal == 0)
//both dates are equal
else if(retVal < 0)
//myDateOne is before myDateTwo
else if(retVal > 0)
//myDateOne is after myDateTwo
Apache commons-lang is almost ubiquitous. So what about this?
if (DateUtils.isSameDay(date1, date2)) {
// it's same
} else if (date1.before(date2)) {
// it's before
} else {
// it's after
}
If you really want to use the java.util.Date, you would do something like this:
public class TimeIgnoringComparator implements Comparator<Date> {
public int compare(Date d1, Date d2) {
if (d1.getYear() != d2.getYear())
return d1.getYear() - d2.getYear();
if (d1.getMonth() != d2.getMonth())
return d1.getMonth() - d2.getMonth();
return d1.getDate() - d2.getDate();
}
}
or, using a Calendar instead (preferred, since getYear() and such are deprecated)
public class TimeIgnoringComparator implements Comparator<Calendar> {
public int compare(Calendar c1, Calendar c2) {
if (c1.get(Calendar.YEAR) != c2.get(Calendar.YEAR))
return c1.get(Calendar.YEAR) - c2.get(Calendar.YEAR);
if (c1.get(Calendar.MONTH) != c2.get(Calendar.MONTH))
return c1.get(Calendar.MONTH) - c2.get(Calendar.MONTH);
return c1.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH) - c2.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
}
}
My preference would be to use the Joda library insetad of java.util.Date directly, as Joda makes a distinction between date and time (see YearMonthDay and DateTime classes).
However, if you do wish to use java.util.Date I would suggest writing a utility method; e.g.
public static Date setTimeToMidnight(Date date) {
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.setTime( date );
calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
return calendar.getTime();
}
Any opinions on this alternative?
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
sdf.format(date1).equals(sdf.format(date2));
If you want to compare only the month, day and year of two dates, following code works for me:
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
sdf.format(date1).equals(sdf.format(date2));
Thanks Rob.
tl;dr
myJavaUtilDate1.toInstant()
.atZone( ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" ) )
.toLocalDate()
.isEqual (
myJavaUtilDate2.toInstant()
.atZone( ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" ) )
.toLocalDate()
)
Avoid legacy date-time classes
Avoid the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as Date & Calendar, now supplanted by the java.time classes.
Using java.time
A java.util.Date represents a moment on the timeline in UTC. The equivalent in java.time is Instant. You may convert using new methods added to the legacy class.
Instant instant1 = myJavaUtilDate1.toInstant();
Instant instant2 = myJavaUtilDate2.toInstant();
You want to compare by date. A time zone is crucial in determining a date. 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 still “yesterday” in Montréal Québec.
Specify a proper time zone name in the format of continent/region, such as America/Montreal, Africa/Casablanca, or Pacific/Auckland. Never use the 3-4 letter abbreviation such as EST or IST as they are not true time zones, not standardized, and not even unique(!).
ZoneId z = ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" );
Apply the ZoneId to the Instant to get a ZonedDateTime.
ZonedDateTime zdt1 = instant1.atZone( z );
ZonedDateTime zdt2 = instant2.atZone( z );
The LocalDate class represents a date-only value without time-of-day and without time zone. We can extract a LocalDate from a ZonedDateTime, effectively eliminating the time-of-day portion.
LocalDate localDate1 = zdt1.toLocalDate();
LocalDate localDate2 = zdt2.toLocalDate();
Now compare, using methods such as isEqual, isBefore, and isAfter.
Boolean sameDate = localDate1.isEqual( localDate2 );
See this code run live at IdeOne.com.
instant1: 2017-03-25T04:13:10.971Z | instant2: 2017-03-24T22:13:10.972Z
zdt1: 2017-03-25T00:13:10.971-04:00[America/Montreal] | zdt2: 2017-03-24T18:13:10.972-04:00[America/Montreal]
localDate1: 2017-03-25 | localDate2: 2017-03-24
sameDate: false
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.
The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.
To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.
Where to obtain the java.time classes?
Java SE 8 and SE 9 and later
Built-in.
Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes.
Java SE 6 and SE 7
Much of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
Android
The ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above) for Android specifically.
See How to use ThreeTenABP….
The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.
I too prefer Joda Time, but here's an alternative:
long oneDay = 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000
long d1 = first.getTime() / oneDay
long d2 = second.getTime() / oneDay
d1 == d2
EDIT
I put the UTC thingy below in case you need to compare dates for a specific timezone other than UTC. If you do have such a need, though, then I really advise going for Joda.
long oneDay = 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000
long hoursFromUTC = -4 * 60 * 60 * 1000 // EST with Daylight Time Savings
long d1 = (first.getTime() + hoursFromUTC) / oneDay
long d2 = (second.getTime() + hoursFromUTC) / oneDay
d1 == d2
Already mentioned apache commons-utils:
org.apache.commons.lang.time.DateUtils.truncate(date, Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH)
gives you Date object containing only date, without time, and you can compare it with Date.compareTo
If you're using Java 8, you should use the java.time.* classes to compare dates - it's preferred to the various java.util.* classes
eg; https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/time/LocalDate.html
LocalDate date1 = LocalDate.of(2016, 2, 14);
LocalDate date2 = LocalDate.of(2015, 5, 23);
date1.isAfter(date2);
I am afraid there is no method of comparing two dates that could be called "easy" or "simple".
When comparing two time instances with any sort of reduced precision (e.g. just comparing dates), you must always take into account how time zone affects the comparison.
If date1 is specifying an event that occurred in +2 timezone and date2 is specifying an event that occurred in EST, for example, you must take care to properly understand the implications of the comparison.
Is your purpose to figure out if the two events occurred in the same calendar date in their own respective time zones? Or do You need to know if the two dates fall into the same calendar date in a specific time zone (UTC or your local TZ, for example).
Once you figure out what it is actually that You are trying to compare, it is just a matter of getting the year-month-date triple in an appropriate time zone and do the comparison.
Joda time might make the actual comparison operation look much cleaner, but the semantics of the comparison are still something You need to figure out yourself.
Simply Check DAY_OF_YEAR in combination with YEAR property
boolean isSameDay =
firstCal.get(Calendar.YEAR) == secondCal.get(Calendar.YEAR) &&
firstCal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR) == secondCal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR)
EDIT:
Now we can use the power of Kotlin extension functions
fun Calendar.isSameDay(second: Calendar): Boolean {
return this[Calendar.YEAR] == second[Calendar.YEAR] && this[Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR] == second[Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR]
}
fun Calendar.compareDatesOnly(other: Calendar): Int {
return when {
isSameDay(other) -> 0
before(other) -> -1
else -> 1
}
}
If you just want to compare only two dates without time, then following code might help you:
final SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
Date dLastUpdateDate = dateFormat.parse(20111116);
Date dCurrentDate = dateFormat.parse(dateFormat.format(new Date()));
if (dCurrentDate.after(dLastUpdateDate))
{
add your logic
}
I don't know it is new think or else, but i show you as i done
SimpleDateFormat dtf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
Date td_date = new Date();
String first_date = dtf.format(td_date); //First seted in String
String second_date = "30/11/2020"; //Second date you can set hear in String
String result = (first_date.equals(second_date)) ? "Yes, Its Equals":"No, It is not Equals";
System.out.println(result);
Here is a solution from this blog: http://brigitzblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/java-compare-dates.html
long milliseconds1 = calendar1.getTimeInMillis();
long milliseconds2 = calendar2.getTimeInMillis();
long diff = milliseconds2 - milliseconds1;
long diffDays = diff / (24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
System.out.println("Time in days: " + diffDays + " days.");
i.e. you can see if the time difference in milliseconds is less than the length of one day.
`
SimpleDateFormat sdf= new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy")
Date date1=sdf.parse("03/25/2015");
Date currentDate= sdf.parse(sdf.format(new Date()));
return date1.compareTo(currentDate);
`
Using http://mvnrepository.com/artifact/commons-lang/commons-lang
Date date1 = new Date();
Date date2 = new Date();
if (DateUtils.truncatedCompareTo(date1, date2, Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH) == 0)
// TRUE
else
// FALSE
In Java 8 you can use LocalDate which is very similar to the one from Joda Time.
public Date saveDateWithoutTime(Date date) {
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.setTime( date );
calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
return calendar.getTime();
}
This will help you to compare dates without considering the time.
Using the getDateInstance of SimpleDateFormat, we can compare only two date object without time. Execute the below code.
public static void main(String[] args) {
Date date1 = new Date();
Date date2 = new Date();
DateFormat dfg = SimpleDateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.DATE_FIELD);
String dateDtr1 = dfg.format(date1);
String dateDtr2 = dfg.format(date2);
System.out.println(dateDtr1+" : "+dateDtr2);
System.out.println(dateDtr1.equals(dateDtr2));
}
Another Simple compare method based on the answers here and my mentor guidance
public static int compare(Date d1, Date d2) {
Calendar c1 = Calendar.getInstance();
Calendar c2 = Calendar.getInstance();
c1.setTime(d1);
c1.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
c1.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
c1.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
c1.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
c2.setTime(d2);
c2.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
c2.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
c2.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
c2.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
return c1.getTime().compareTo(c2.getTime());
}
EDIT:
According to #Jonathan Drapeau, the code above fail some cases (I would like to see those cases, please) and he suggested the following as I understand:
public static int compare2(Date d1, Date d2) {
Calendar c1 = Calendar.getInstance();
Calendar c2 = Calendar.getInstance();
c1.clear();
c2.clear();
c1.set(Calendar.YEAR, d1.getYear());
c1.set(Calendar.MONTH, d1.getMonth());
c1.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, d1.getDay());
c2.set(Calendar.YEAR, d2.getYear());
c2.set(Calendar.MONTH, d2.getMonth());
c2.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, d2.getDay());
return c1.getTime().compareTo(c2.getTime());
}
Please notice that, the Date class is deprecated cause it was not amenable to internationalization. The Calendar class is used instead!
First, be aware that this operation depends on the time zone. So choose whether you want to do it in UTC, in the computer’s time zone, in your own favourite time zone or where. If you are not yet convinced it matters, see my example at the bottom of this answer.
Since your question isn’t quite clear about this, I am assuming that you have a class with an instance field representing a point in time and implementing Comparable, and you want the natural ordering of your objects to be by the date, but not the time, of that field. For example:
public class ArnesClass implements Comparable<ArnesClass> {
private static final ZoneId arnesTimeZone = ZoneId.systemDefault();
private Instant when;
#Override
public int compareTo(ArnesClass o) {
// question is what to put here
}
}
Java 8 java.time classes
I have taken the freedom of changing the type of your instance field from Date to Instant, the corresponding class in Java 8. I promise to return to the treatment of Date below. I have also added a time zone constant. You may set it to ZoneOffset.UTC or ZoneId.of("Europe/Stockholm") or what you find appropriate (setting it to a ZoneOffset works because ZoneOffset is a subclass of ZoneId).
I have chosen to show the solution using the Java 8 classes. You asked for the simplest way, right? :-) Here’s the compareTo method you asked for:
public int compareTo(ArnesClass o) {
LocalDate dateWithoutTime = when.atZone(arnesTimeZone).toLocalDate();
LocalDate otherDateWithoutTime = o.when.atZone(arnesTimeZone).toLocalDate();
return dateWithoutTime.compareTo(otherDateWithoutTime);
}
If you never need the time part of when, it is of course easier to declare when a LocalDate and skip all conversions. Then we don’t have to worry about the time zone anymore either.
Now suppose that for some reason you cannot declare your when field an Instant or you want to keep it an old-fashioned Date. If you can still use Java 8, just convert it to Instant, then do as before:
LocalDate dateWithoutTime = when.toInstant().atZone(arnesTimeZone).toLocalDate();
Similarly for o.when.
No Java 8?
If you cannot use java 8, there are two options:
Solve it using one of the old classes, either Calendar or SimpleDateFormat.
Use the backport of the Java 8 date and time classes to Java 6 and 7, then just do as above. I include a link at the bottom. Do not use JodaTime. JodaTime was probably a good suggestion when the answers recommending it were written; but JodaTime is now in maintenance mode, so the ThreeTen backport is a better and more futureproof option.
The old-fashioned ways
Adamski’s answer shows you how to strip the time part off a Date using the Calendar class. I suggest you use getInstance(TimeZone) to obtain the Calendar instance for the time zone you want. As an alternative you may use the idea from the second half of Jorn’s answer.
Using SimpleDateFormat is really an indirect way of using Calendar since a SimpleDateFormat contains a Calendar object. However, you may find it less troublesome than using Calendar directly:
private static final TimeZone arnesTimeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone("Europe/Stockholm");
private static final DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
static {
formatter.setTimeZone(arnesTimeZone);
}
private Date when;
#Override
public int compareTo(ArnesClass o) {
return formatter.format(when).compareTo(formatter.format(o.when));
}
This was inspired by Rob’s answer.
Time zone dependency
Why do we have to pick a specific time zone? Say that we want to compare two times that in UTC are March 24 0:00 (midnight) and 12:00 (noon). If you do that in CET (say, Europe/Paris), they are 1 am and 1 pm on March 24, that is, the same date. In New York (Eastern Daylight Time), they are 20:00 on March 23 and 8:00 on March 24, that is, not the same date. So it makes a difference which time zone you pick. If you just rely on the computer’s default, you may be in for surprises when someone tries to run your code on a computer in another place in this globalized world.
Link
Link to ThreeTen Backport, the backport of the Java 8 date and time classes to Java 6 and 7: http://www.threeten.org/threetenbp/.
My proposition:
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.set(1999,10,01); // nov 1st, 1999
cal.set(Calendar.AM_PM,Calendar.AM);
cal.set(Calendar.HOUR,0);
cal.set(Calendar.MINUTE,0);
cal.set(Calendar.SECOND,0);
cal.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND,0);
// date column in the Thought table is of type sql date
Thought thought = thoughtDao.getThought(date, language);
Assert.assertEquals(cal.getTime(), thought.getDate());
Using Apache commons you can do:
import org.apache.commons.lang3.time.DateUtils
DateUtils.truncatedEquals(first, second, Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH)
public static Date getZeroTimeDate(Date fecha) {
Date res = fecha;
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
calendar.setTime( fecha );
calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
calendar.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
res = calendar.getTime();
return res;
}
Date currentDate = getZeroTimeDate(new Date());// get current date
this is the simplest way to solve this problem.
I solved this by comparing by timestamp:
Calendar last = Calendar.getInstance();
last.setTimeInMillis(firstTimeInMillis);
Calendar current = Calendar.getInstance();
if (last.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH) != current.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH)) {
//not the same day
}
I avoid to use Joda Time because on Android uses a huge space. Size matters. ;)
Another solution using Java 8 and Instant, is using the truncatedTo method
Returns a copy of this Instant truncated to the specified unit.
Example:
#Test
public void dateTruncate() throws InterruptedException {
Instant now = Instant.now();
Thread.sleep(1000*5);
Instant later = Instant.now();
assertThat(now, not(equalTo(later)));
assertThat(now.truncatedTo(ChronoUnit.DAYS), equalTo(later.truncatedTo(ChronoUnit.DAYS)));
}
// Create one day 00:00:00 calendar
int oneDayTimeStamp = 1523017440;
Calendar oneDayCal = Calendar.getInstance();
oneDayCal.setTimeInMillis(oneDayTimeStamp * 1000L);
oneDayCal.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
oneDayCal.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
oneDayCal.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
oneDayCal.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
// Create current day 00:00:00 calendar
Calendar currentCal = Calendar.getInstance();
currentCal.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
currentCal.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
currentCal.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
currentCal.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
if (oneDayCal.compareTo(currentCal) == 0) {
// Same day (excluding time)
}
If you strictly want to use Date ( java.util.Date ), or without any use of external Library. Use this :
public Boolean compareDateWithoutTime(Date d1, Date d2) {
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
return sdf.format(d1).equals(sdf.format(d2));
}
Date today = new Date();
Date endDate = new Date();//this
endDate.setTime(endDate.getTime() - ((endDate.getHours()*60*60*1000) + (endDate.getMinutes()*60*1000) + (endDate.getSeconds()*1000)));
today.setTime(today.getTime() - ((today.getHours()*60*60*1000) + (today.getMinutes()*60*1000) + (today.getSeconds()*1000)));
System.out.println(endDate.compareTo(today) <= 0);
I am simply setting hours/minutes/second to 0 so no issue with the time as time will be same now for both dates. now you simply use compareTo. This method helped to find "if dueDate is today" where true means Yes.

CodeReview: java Dates diff (in day resolution)

Please your opinion on the following code.
I need to calculate the diff in days between 2 Date objects. It is assured that both Date objects are within the same TimeZone.
public class DateUtils {
public final static long DAY_TIME_IN_MILLIS = 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000;
/**
* Compare between 2 dates in day resolution.
*
* #return positive integer if date1 > date2, negative if date1 < date2. 0 if they are equal.
*/
public static int datesDiffInDays(final Date date1, final Date date2){
long date1DaysMS = date1.getTime() - (date1.getTime() % DAY_TIME_IN_MILLIS);
long date2DaysMS = date2.getTime() - (date2.getTime() % DAY_TIME_IN_MILLIS);
long timeInMillisDiff = (date1DaysMS - date2DaysMS);
int ret = (int) (timeInMillisDiff / DAY_TIME_IN_MILLIS);
return ret;
}
Can you point to a problem that I might have missed ?
EDIT: #mmyers asked if pass my unit test. Well - Yes. But I have no real experience with dates and I know that is a big subject. Posted below the unit test that I'm using.
public class TestMLDateUtils {
#Test
public final void testDatesDiffInDays() {
TimeZone.setDefault(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
// 00:00:00.000 1.1.1970
Calendar cal1970 = Calendar.getInstance();
cal1970.setTimeInMillis(0);
Calendar tested = Calendar.getInstance();
tested.setTimeInMillis(0);
// Add 1 millisecond, date = 00:00:00.001 1.1.1970
tested.add(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(cal1970.getTime(), tested.getTime()) == 0);
// Add 1 second, date = 00:00:01.001 1.1.1970
tested.add(Calendar.SECOND, 1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(cal1970.getTime(), tested.getTime()) == 0);
// Add 1 minute, date = 00:01:01.001 1.1.1970
tested.add(Calendar.MINUTE, 1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(cal1970.getTime(), tested.getTime()) == 0);
// Add 1 hour, date = 01:01:01.001 1.1.1970
tested.add(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(cal1970.getTime(), tested.getTime()) == 0);
// date = 23:59:59.999 1.1.1970
tested.setTimeInMillis(0);
tested.add(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 999);
tested.add(Calendar.SECOND, 59);
tested.add(Calendar.MINUTE, 59);
tested.add(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 23);
//System.out.println("D: " + tested.getTime());
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(cal1970.getTime(), tested.getTime()) == 0);
// date = 00:00:00.000 2.1.1970
tested.setTimeInMillis(0);
tested.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(cal1970.getTime(), tested.getTime()) == -1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(tested.getTime(), cal1970.getTime()) == 1);
// date = 00:00:00.001 2.1.1970
tested.add(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(cal1970.getTime(), tested.getTime()) == -1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(tested.getTime(), cal1970.getTime()) == 1);
// date = 00:00:01.001 2.1.1970
tested.add(Calendar.SECOND, 1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(cal1970.getTime(), tested.getTime()) == -1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(tested.getTime(), cal1970.getTime()) == 1);
// date = 00:01:01.001 2.1.1970
tested.add(Calendar.MINUTE, 1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(cal1970.getTime(), tested.getTime()) == -1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(tested.getTime(), cal1970.getTime()) == 1);
// date = 01:01:01.001 2.1.1970
tested.add(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(cal1970.getTime(), tested.getTime()) == -1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(tested.getTime(), cal1970.getTime()) == 1);
// date = 13:01:01.001 2.1.1970
tested.add(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 12);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(cal1970.getTime(), tested.getTime()) == -1);
assertTrue(DateUtils.datesDiffInDays(tested.getTime(), cal1970.getTime()) == 1);
}
}
Immediate problem: days can have less than or more than 24 hours due to daylight saving time changes.
Secondary problem: normally when people think in days, they really mean "human days" rather than "periods of 24 hours". In other words, many people would say that 7pm-7am the next day is a difference of a day, whereas 7am-7pm the same day is a difference of zero days. Both are 12 hours. At that point, you really need to know the calendar that is being considered.
Of course, this may not matter for your situation, but we don't really know what that is.
Third problem: you're using the built-in calendar API instead of Joda Time. That's almost never a good idea - it's horrible and riddled with gotchas and problems. And yes, the regulars here will tell you that's always part of my answer when it comes to Java dates and times - and for good reason. It's really that important.
EDIT: Your test sets the default time zone to be UTC. That's not really a good idea (especially without resetting it in a finally statement). Time zones are tricky, but you should really think about what values you've got, what they mean, and what time zones are involved.
The time zone, if any, within the Date object is irrelevant, since you're using getTime(); that "[r]eturns the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT represented by this Date object."
However, you aren't accounting for leap seconds, which some implementations may return. Thus, if the day range you give has one or more leap seconds in it, and your times are near enough to the same time of day, your calculation may be wrong by a day. That said, there appears to be no way to see if any particular implementation accounts for leap seconds or not (I expect that most don't), and the difference is pretty darn trivial anyway.
There are many dimensions to a code review; rather than correctness, addressed by others, let me focus a little on style. This will of course be somewhat more subjective than a review concentrating on correctness.
I would inline the "ret" variable. It increases the size of the method without enhancing readability.
I would consider separating the conversion between milliseconds and days into a separate function. Your full class probably performs that division in multiple places. Even if not, it's helpful in that it's easier to name functions that do only one thing.
Speaking of naming, I would rename the function, perhaps to "dayDifference" - abbreviations cause many problems, not least of which is the difficulty of remember which abbreviation was used in which circumstance. If you use none, ever, that particular source of confusion is eliminated. Similarly, I would rename the constant to MILLISECONDS_PER_DAY.
Another problem which hasn't been mentioned yet is leap seconds. Days may have more or less than 24 * 60 * 60 seconds due to adjustments in UTC time to keep it more or less in synch with the mean solar year. Probably not a big deal for your usage, but you should at least be aware of the possibility.
A good API is what you need if you have non-trivial requirements for dealing with dates and times. The link to Joda Time in Jon Skeet's answer appears to be broken, so here is a link that does work.
Date already has this method, look up Date.compareTo(Date) in Javadoc.

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