In Java how do I get the difference in seconds between 2 dates

Question

The Java class library has a class named DateTime  DateTime has this method   int daysBetween DateTime other    which returns the number of days between this and the parameter  It doesn t have a method  int secondsBetween DateTime other    which I happen to need  Is there a class which is similar to DateTime but has such a method

User · Answer

You can use org apache commons lang time DateUtils to make it cleaner    firstDate getTime   - secondDate getTime      DateUtils MILLIS PER SECOND

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There is no such class as DateTime in the standard Java SE API  Although there is one in joda-time  even that does not have a daysBetween method   Using the standard Java API  the easiest way to get seconds between two java util Date objects would be to subtract their timestamps and divide by 1000   int secondsBetween    date1 getTime   - date2 getTime      1000

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Use this method   private Long secondsBetween Date first  Date second       return  second getTime   - first getTime    1000

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You should do  org joda time Seconds secondBetween date1  date2

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Just a pointer  If you re calculating the difference between two java util Date the approach of subtracting both dates and dividing it by 1000 is reasonable  but take special care if you get your java util Date reference from a Calendar object  If you do so  you need to take account of daylight savings of your TimeZone since one of the dates you re using might take place on a DST period    That is explained on Prasoon s link  I recommend taking some time to read it

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It is not recommended to use java util Date or System currentTimeMillis   to measure elapsed times  These dates are not guaranteed to be monotonic and will changes occur when the system clock is modified  eg when corrected from server   In probability this will happen rarely  but why not code a better solution rather than worrying about possibly negative or very large changes   Instead I would recommend using System nanoTime     long t1   System nanoTime    long t2   System nanoTime     long elapsedTimeInSeconds    t2 - t1    1000000000    EDIT  For more information about monoticity see the answer to a related question I asked  where possible nanoTime uses a monotonic clock  I have tested but only using Windows XP  Java 1 6 and modifying the clock whereby nanoTime was monotonic and currentTimeMillis wasn t   Also from Java s Real time doc s      Q  50  Is the time returned via the   real-time clock of better resolution   than that returned by   System nanoTime         The real-time clock and   System nanoTime   are both based on   the same system call and thus the same   clock       With Java RTS  all time-based APIs    for example  Timers  Periodic   Threads  Deadline Monitoring  and so   forth  are based on the   high-resolution timer  And  together   with real-time priorities  they can   ensure that the appropriate code will   be executed at the right time for   real-time constraints  In contrast    ordinary Java SE APIs offer just a few   methods capable of handling   high-resolution times  with no   guarantee of execution at a given   time  Using System nanoTime   between   various points in the code to perform   elapsed time measurements should   always be accurate

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I should like to provide the modern answer  The other answers were fine when this question was asked  but time moves on  Today I recommend you use java time  the modern Java date and time API       ZonedDateTime aDateTime   ZonedDateTime of 2017  12  8  19  25  48  991000000  ZoneId of  Europe Sarajevo         ZonedDateTime otherDateTime   ZonedDateTime of 2017  12  8  20  10  38  238000000  ZoneId of  Europe Sarajevo          long diff   ChronoUnit SECONDS between aDateTime  otherDateTime       System out println  Difference      diff     seconds      This prints   Difference  2689 seconds   ChronoUnit SECONDS between   works with two ZonedDateTime objects or two OffsetDateTimes  two LocalDateTimes  etc   If you need anything else than just the seconds  you should consider using the Duration class       Duration dur   Duration between aDateTime  otherDateTime       System out println  Duration      dur       System out println  Difference      dur getSeconds       seconds      This prints   Duration  PT44M49 247S Difference  2689 seconds   The former of the two lines prints the duration in ISO 8601 format  the output means a duration of 44 minutes and 49 247 seconds   Why java time   The Date class used in several of the other answers is now long outdated  Joda-Time also used in a couple  and possibly in the question  is now in maintenance mode  no major enhancements are planned  and the developers officially recommend migrating to java time  also known as JSR-310   Question  Can I use the modern API with my Java version   If using at least Java 6  you can    In Java 8 and later the new API comes built-in  In Java 6 and 7 get the ThreeTen Backport  the backport of the new classes  ThreeTen for JSR 310    On Android  use the Android edition of ThreeTen Backport  It   s called ThreeTenABP  and there   s a thorough explanation in this question  How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project

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That should do it   Date a        Date b         Math abs a getTime  -b getTime    1000    Here the relevant documentation  Date getTime    Be aware that this will only work for dates after January 1  1970  00 00 00 GMT

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If you re using Joda  which may be coming as jsr 310 in JDK 7  separate open source api until then  then there is a Seconds class with a secondsBetween method   Here s the javadoc link  http   joda-time sourceforge net api-release org joda time Seconds html secondsBetween org joda time ReadableInstant  20org joda time ReadableInstant

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Which class   Do you mean the Joda DateTime class   If so  you can simply call getMillis   on each  and perform the appropriate subtraction scaling   I would recommend Joda for date time work  btw  due to it s useful and intuitive API  and its thread-safety for formatting parsing options

User · Answer

Not familiar with DateTime     If you have two Dates you can call getTime on them to get millseconds  get the diff and divide by 1000  For example  Date d1        Date d2        long seconds    d2 getTime  -d1 getTime    1000    If you have Calendar objects you can call  c getTimeInMillis     and do the same

[java] In Java, how do I get the difference in seconds between 2 dates?

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