[java] How to get last month/year in java?

How do I find out the last month and its year in Java?

e.g. If today is Oct. 10 2012, the result should be Month = 9 and Year = 2012. If today is Jan. 10 2013, the result should be Month = 12 and Year = 2012.

Here's the code snippet.I think it works.

      Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
      SimpleDateFormat simpleMonth=new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM YYYY");
      cal.add(Calendar.MONTH, -1);
      System.out.println(simpleMonth.format(prevcal.getTime()));

you can use the Calendar class to do so:

SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy.MM.dd HH:mm");
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.add(Calendar.MONTH, -1);
System.out.println(format.format(cal.getTime()));

This prints : 2012.09.10 11:01 for actual date 2012.10.10 11:01

You need to be aware that month is zero based so when you do the getMonth you will need to add 1. In the example below we have to add 1 to Januaray as 1 and not 0

    Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
    c.set(2011, 2, 1);
    c.add(Calendar.MONTH, -1);
    int month = c.get(Calendar.MONTH) + 1;
    assertEquals(1, month);

private static String getPreviousMonthDate(Date date){
    final SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy");

    Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();  
    cal.setTime(date);  
    cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1);  
    cal.add(Calendar.DATE, -1);

    Date preMonthDate = cal.getTime();  
    return format.format(preMonthDate);
}


private static String getPreToPreMonthDate(Date date){
    final SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy");

    Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();  
    cal.setTime(date);  
    cal.add(Calendar.MONTH, -1);  
    cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH,1);  
    cal.add(Calendar.DATE, -1);  

    Date preToPreMonthDate = cal.getTime();  
    return format.format(preToPreMonthDate);
}

java.time

Using java.time framework built into Java 8:

import java.time.LocalDate;

LocalDate now = LocalDate.now(); // 2015-11-24
LocalDate earlier = now.minusMonths(1); // 2015-10-24

earlier.getMonth(); // java.time.Month = OCTOBER
earlier.getMonth.getValue(); // 10
earlier.getYear(); // 2015

The simplest & least error prone approach is... Use Calendar's roll() method. Like this:

    c.roll(Calendar.MONTH, false);

the roll method takes a boolean, which basically means roll the month up(true) or down(false)?

Use Joda Time Library. It is very easy to handle date, time, calender and locale with it and it will be integrated to java in version 8.

DateTime#minusMonths method would help you get previous month.

DateTime month = new DateTime().minusMonths (1);