Creating Dates in Java

Question

I am wondering whats the proper way of creating Dates in Java? It appears the simnplest way

new Date(year, month, day, hours, mins)

Is depreciated. So how should I create Dates. I understand the recommended way is to use long but whats an easy way to get the long value of a human readable date like "2012-03-21 2:00PM" (or something similar)?

Lii · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-01 08:43:44Z

6

Since Java 8 you can use the Calendar.Builder class:

Date date = new Calendar.Builder()
    .setDate(2012, 2, 21)
    .setTimeOfDay(14, 0, 0)
    .build().getTime();

edited Sep 1, 2014 at 8:43

answered Sep 1, 2014 at 8:36

Lii

12.2k9 gold badges69 silver badges92 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Jeffrey · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-17 03:34:23Z

3

Use the Calendar class. Or Joda Time, as I'm sure someone else will suggest.

Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
c.set(year, month, day, hours, mins);
long time = c.getTimeInMillis();

answered Mar 17, 2012 at 3:34

Jeffrey

44.9k8 gold badges93 silver badges143 bronze badges

2 Comments

Jeffrey Over a year ago

@ErnestFriedman-Hill The OP is interested in the UTC value, not the Date, per se.

Amos M. Carpenter Over a year ago

+1 for recommending Joda Time - Java's Date implementation is easily the worst out of any programming languages I've come across - it's cumbersome and unintuitive. Joda Time makes it much easier.

Jhonathan · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-17 03:44:31Z

1

Example:

try { 
   String str_date="2012-03-21 2:00PM";
   DateFormat formatter ; 
   Date date ; 
   formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd ha");
   date = (Date)formatter.parse(str_date);  
   Calendar cal=Calendar.getInstance();
   cal.setTime(date);
   System.out.println("Date to long " + cal.getTimeInMillis());
} catch (ParseException e)  {
  System.out.println("Exception :"+e);  
}

edited Mar 17, 2012 at 3:44

answered Mar 17, 2012 at 3:36

Jhonathan

1,6012 gold badges13 silver badges24 bronze badges

Comments

Ernest Friedman-Hill · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-17 03:34:50Z

0

You're supposed to build an appropriate Calendar -- which you can use by itself in many cases -- and just call getDate() on it if you really need a Date object.

answered Mar 17, 2012 at 3:34

Ernest Friedman-Hill

81.9k11 gold badges158 silver badges192 bronze badges

Comments

Dylan Bijnagte · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-17 03:35:38Z

0

You can use the GregorianCalendar for dates

answered Mar 17, 2012 at 3:35

Dylan Bijnagte

1,3569 silver badges17 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Creating Dates in Java

5 Answers 5

Comments

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

5 Answers 5

Comments

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related