How to get the current date and time

Question

How do I get the current date and time in Java   I am looking for something that is equivalent to DateTime Now from C

User · Answer

I prefer using the Calendar object   Calendar now   GregorianCalendar getInstance     I find it much easier to work with   You can also get a Date object from the Calendar     http   java sun com javase 6 docs api java util GregorianCalendar html

User · Answer

If you create a new Date object  by default it will be set to the current time   import java util Date  Date now   new Date

User · Answer

java lang System currentTimeMillis    will return the datetime since the epoch

User · Answer

In Java 8 it s   ZonedDateTime dateTime   ZonedDateTime now

User · Answer

The Java Date and Calendar classes are considered by many to be poorly designed   You should take a look at Joda Time  a library commonly used in lieu of Java s built-in date libraries   The equivalent of DateTime Now in Joda Time is   DateTime dt   new DateTime      Update  As noted in the comments  the latest versions of Joda Time have a DateTime now   method  so   DateTime dt   DateTime now

User · Answer

import java util Date     Date now   new Date      Note that the Date object is mutable and if you want to do anything sophisticated  use jodatime

User · Answer

tl dr  Instant now     java time  The java util Date class has been outmoded by the new java time package  Tutorial  in Java 8 and later  The old java util Date  Calendar classes are notoriously troublesome  confusing  and flawed  Avoid them   ZonedDateTime  Get the current moment in java time   ZonedDateTime now   ZonedDateTime now      A ZonedDateTime encapsulates    Date  Time-of-day  with a fraction of a second to nanosecond resolution  Time zone     If no time zone is specified  your JVM   s current default time zone is assigned silently  Better to specify your desired expected time zone than rely implicitly on default   ZoneId z   ZoneId of   Pacific Auckland     ZonedDateTime zdt   ZonedDateTime now  z      UTC  Generally better to get in the habit of doing your back-end work  business logic  database  storage  data exchange  all in UTC time zone  The code above relies implicitly on the JVM   s current default time zone   The Instant class represents a moment in the timeline in UTC with a resolution of nanoseconds   Instant instant   Instant now      The Instant class is a basic building-block class in java time and may be used often in your code    When you need more flexibility in formatting  transform into an OffsetDateTime  Specify a ZoneOffset object  For UTC use the handy constant for UTC   OffsetDateTime odt   instant atOffset  ZoneOffset UTC      Time Zone  You easily adjust to another time zone for presentation to the user  Use a proper time zone name  never the 3-4 letter codes such as EST or IST   ZoneId z   ZoneId of   America Montreal     ZonedDateTime nowMontreal   instant atZone  z      Generate a String representation of that date-time value  localized   String output   DateTimeFormatter      ofLocalizedDate  FormatStyle FULL        withLocale  Locale CANADA FRENCH        format   nowMontreal      Instant  Or  to stay in UTC  use Instant  An Instant object represents a moment on the timeline  to nanosecond resolution  always in UTC  This provides the building block for a zoned date-time  along with a time zone assignment  You can think of it conceptually this way       ZonedDateTime   Instant   ZoneId   You can extract an Instant from a ZonedDateTime   Instant instantNow   zdt toInstant      You can start with an Instant  No need to specify a time zone here  as Instant is always in UTC   Instant now   Instant now

User · Answer

import org joda time DateTime   DateTime now   DateTime now

User · Answer

Just construct a new Date object without any arguments  this will assign the current date and time to the new object   import java util Date   Date d   new Date      In the words of the Javadocs for the zero-argument constructor      Allocates a Date object and initializes it so that it represents the time at which it was allocated  measured to the nearest millisecond    Make sure you re using java util Date and not java sql Date -- the latter doesn t have a zero-arg constructor  and has somewhat different semantics that are the topic of an entirely different conversation

User · Answer

Java has always got inadequate support for the date and time use cases  For example  the existing classes  such as java util Date and SimpleDateFormatter  aren   t thread-safe which can lead to concurrency issues  Also there are certain flaws in API  For example  years in java util Date start at 1900  months start at 1  and days start at 0   not very intuitive  These issues led to popularity of third-party date and time libraries  such as Joda-Time  To address a new date and time API is designed for Java SE 8   LocalDateTime timePoint   LocalDateTime now    System out println timePoint     As per doc      The method now   returns the current date-time using the system   clock and default time-zone  not null  It obtains the current   date-time from the system clock in the default time-zone  This will   query the system clock in the default time-zone to obtain the current   date-time  Using this method will prevent the ability to use an   alternate clock for testing because the clock is hard-coded

[java] How to get the current date and time

Examples related to java

Examples related to datetime