[java] Need to get current timestamp in Java

I need to get the current timestamp in Java, with the format of MM/DD/YYYY h:mm:ss AM/PM,

For example: 06/01/2000 10:01:50 AM

I need it to be Threadsafe as well.

Can I utilize something like this?

java.util.Date date = new java.util.Date();
System.out.println(new Timestamp(date.getTime()));

Or the examples discussed at the link here.

I did it like this when I wanted a tmiestamp

    String timeStamp = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMddHHmmss").format(Calendar.getInstance().getTime());

Hope it helps :) As a newbie I think it's self-explanatory

I think you also need import java.text.SimpleDateFormat; header for it to work :))

well sometimes this is also useful.

import java.util.Date;
public class DisplayDate {
public static void main(String args[]) {
   // Instantiate an object
   Date date = new Date();

   // display time and date
   System.out.println(date.toString());}}

sample output: Mon Jul 03 19:07:15 IST 2017

Joda-Time

Here is the same kind of code but using the third-party library Joda-Time 2.3.

In real life, I would specify a time zone, as relying on default zone is usually a bad practice. But omitted here for simplicity of example.

org.joda.time.DateTime now = new DateTime();
org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormat.forPattern( "MM/dd/yyyy h:mm:ss a" );
String nowAsString = formatter.print( now );

System.out.println( "nowAsString: " + nowAsString );

When run…

nowAsString: 11/28/2013 11:28:15 PM

The fact that SimpleDateFormat is not thread-safe does not mean you cannot use it. What that only means is that you must not use a single (potentially, but not necessarily static) instance that gets accessed from several threads at once.

Instead, just make sure you create a fresh SimpleDateFormat for each thread. Instances created as local variables inside a method are safe by definition, because they cannot be reached from any concurrent threads.

You might want to take a look at the ThreadLocal class, although I would recommend to just create a new instance wherever you need one. You can, of course, have the format definition defined as a static final String DATE_FORMAT_PATTERN = "..."; somewhere and use that for each new instance.

You can make use of java.util.Date with direct date string format:

String timeStamp = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy.MM.dd.HH.mm.ss").format(new Date());

Print a Timestamp in java, using the java.sql.Timestamp.

import java.sql.Timestamp;
import java.util.Date;

public class GetCurrentTimeStamp {
    public static void main( String[] args ){
        java.util.Date date= new java.util.Date();
        System.out.println(new Timestamp(date.getTime()));
    }
}

This prints:

2014-08-07 17:34:16.664

Print a Timestamp in Java using SimpleDateFormat on a one-liner.

import java.util.Date;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;

class Runner{
    public static void main(String[] args){

        System.out.println(
            new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss").format(new Date()));

    }

}

Prints:

08/14/2014 14:10:38

Java date format legend:

G Era designation      Text               AD
y Year                 Year               1996; 96
M Month in year        Month              July; Jul; 07
w Week in year         Number             27
W Week in month        Number             2
D Day in year          Number             189
d Day in month         Number             10
F Day of week in month Number             2
E Day in week          Text               Tuesday; Tue
a Am/pm marker         Text               PM
H Hour in day (0-23)   Number             0
k Hour in day (1-24)   Number             24
K Hour in am/pm (0-11) Number             0
h Hour in am/pm (1-12) Number             12
m Minute in hour       Number             30
s Second in minute     Number             55
S Millisecond          Number             978
z Time zone            General time zone  Pacific Standard Time; PST; GMT-08:00
Z Time zone            RFC 822 time zone  -0800

Try this single line solution :

import java.util.Date;
String timestamp = 
    new java.text.SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy h:mm:ss a").format(new Date());

java.time

As of Java 8+ you can use the java.time package. Specifically, use DateTimeFormatterBuilder and DateTimeFormatter to format the patterns and literals.

DateTimeFormatter formatter = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
        .appendPattern("MM").appendLiteral("/")
        .appendPattern("dd").appendLiteral("/")
        .appendPattern("yyyy").appendLiteral(" ")
        .appendPattern("hh").appendLiteral(":")
        .appendPattern("mm").appendLiteral(":")
        .appendPattern("ss").appendLiteral(" ")
        .appendPattern("a")
        .toFormatter();
System.out.println(LocalDateTime.now().format(formatter));

The output ...

06/22/2015 11:59:14 AM

Or if you want different time zone…

// system default
System.out.println(formatter.withZone(ZoneId.systemDefault()).format(Instant.now()));
// Chicago
System.out.println(formatter.withZone(ZoneId.of("America/Chicago")).format(Instant.now()));
// Kathmandu
System.out.println(formatter.withZone(ZoneId.of("Asia/Kathmandu")).format(Instant.now()));

The output ...

06/22/2015 12:38:42 PM
06/22/2015 02:08:42 AM
06/22/2015 12:53:42 PM

String.format("{0:dddd, MMMM d, yyyy hh:mm tt}", dt);