unable to get difference of days between two dates in java

Question

I want to calculate the difference of days between two dates. My code works fine when the year of the date does not change, but when I calculate the difference between two dates like so: (13/01/2012 to 13/12/2011), it gives a negative value. It also gives wrong values of difference when I calculate the difference between today's date and a future date. Please help me. Thank you in advance. Here is my code:

//getting values from text box
String fromtext = from.getText().toString();
String totext = to.getText().toString();
//sdf if a simple date formatter
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy");
Date fromdate = (Date) sdf.parse(fromtext);
Date todate = (Date) sdf.parse(totext);

Calendar fromcal = Calendar.getInstance();
Calendar tocal = Calendar.getInstance();


    fromcal.setTime(fromdate);
    tocal.setTime(todate);// setting to date


    int reportDays=(int)(todate.getTime()-fromdate.getTime())/(3600*24*1000);

please tell me what is the best way to calculate the difference in days.

Answer 1

In addition to the format issue already mentionned, you are likely to have an overflow. Try this:

int reportDays=(int)((todate.getTime()-fromdate.getTime())/(3600*24*1000));

Answer 2

Here's a simple little class I wrote for this purpose:

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

public class DifferenceInDays
{
    public int dateOffset(String incomingDate) throws ParseException
    {
        // parse dates
        DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
        Date date = (Date) formatter.parse(incomingDate);

        // convert to milliseconds
        long millisecs = date.getTime();

        // convert to days
        int offsetInDays = (int) Math.abs(millisecs / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24));
        return offsetInDays;
    }
}

It takes care of negative offsets using the absolute value method.

Answer 3

Dates input : 13/01/2012, 13/12/2011

format seems dd/MM/yyyy and you are using wrong one (i.e. MM/dd/yyyy)

Answer 4

Using joda time would be the simplest way.

Answer 5

I think you should try better googling....

• http://www.java2s.com/Code/Java/Development-Class/DateDiffcomputethedifferencebetweentwodates.htm

Answer 6

check this code:

import java.util.Calendar;

public class DateDifferent{  
  public static void main(String[] args){
  Calendar calendar1 = Calendar.getInstance();
  Calendar calendar2 = Calendar.getInstance();
  calendar1.set(2007, 01, 10);
  calendar2.set(2007, 07, 01);
  long milliseconds1 = calendar1.getTimeInMillis();
  long milliseconds2 = calendar2.getTimeInMillis();
  long diff = milliseconds2 - milliseconds1;
  long diffSeconds = diff / 1000;
  long diffMinutes = diff / (60 * 1000);
  long diffHours = diff / (60 * 60 * 1000);
  long diffDays = diff / (24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
  System.out.println("\nThe Date Different Example");
  System.out.println("Time in milliseconds: " + diff + " milliseconds.");
  System.out.println("Time in seconds: " + diffSeconds + " seconds.");
  System.out.println("Time in minutes: " + diffMinutes + " minutes.");
  System.out.println("Time in hours: " + diffHours + " hours.");
  System.out.println("Time in days: " + diffDays + " days.");
  }
}

Answer 7

tl;dr

ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(
    LocalDate.parse( "13/01/2012" , DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern( "dd/MM/uuuu" ) ) ,
    LocalDate.parse( "13/12/2011" , DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern( "dd/MM/uuuu" ) )
)

Using java.time

Much easier with the modern java.time classes that supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as Date & Calendar.

(13/01/2012 to 13/12/2011),

The LocalDate class represents a date-only value without time-of-day and without time zone.

DateTimeFormatter f = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern( "dd/MM/uuuu" );
LocalDate start = LocalDate.parse( "13/01/2012" , f );
LocalDate stop = LocalDate.parse( "13/12/2011" , f );

Use ChronoUnit to calculate elapsed days.

long days = ChronoUnit.DAYS.between( start , stop );

Of course the number of days is negative when going back in time. Notice how your stop date is earlier than your start date.

A time zone is crucial in determining a date. For any given moment, the date varies around the globe by zone. For example, a few minutes after midnight in Paris France is a new day while still “yesterday” in Montréal Québec.

Specify a proper time zone name in the format of continent/region, such as America/Montreal, Africa/Casablanca, or Pacific/Auckland. Never use the 3-4 letter abbreviation such as EST or IST as they are not true time zones, not standardized, and not even unique(!).

ZoneId z = ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" );
LocalDate today = LocalDate.now( z );

You can use ChronoUnit again to count days into the future.

long days = ChronoUnit.DAYS.between( today , today.plusMonths( 7 ) );

---

About java.time

The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old legacy date-time classes such as java.util.Date, Calendar, & SimpleDateFormat.

The Joda-Time project, now in maintenance mode, advises migration to the java.time classes.

To learn more, see the Oracle Tutorial. And search Stack Overflow for many examples and explanations. Specification is JSR 310.

Where to obtain the java.time classes?

• Java SE 8 and SE 9 and later
  • Built-in.
  • Part of the standard Java API with a bundled implementation.
  • Java 9 adds some minor features and fixes.
• Java SE 6 and SE 7
  • Much of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & 7 in ThreeTen-Backport.
• Android
  • The ThreeTenABP project adapts ThreeTen-Backport (mentioned above) for Android specifically.
  • See How to use ThreeTenABP….

The ThreeTen-Extra project extends java.time with additional classes. This project is a proving ground for possible future additions to java.time. You may find some useful classes here such as Interval, YearWeek, YearQuarter, and more.

Answer 8

I would do it like this!

package javaapplication2;
//@author Ibrahim Yesilay
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class JavaApplication2 {  


    public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {



    Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);        
        System.out.println("First dates Day :");
        int d = scan.nextInt();
        System.out.println("First dates Mounth :");
        int m = scan.nextInt();
        System.out.println("First dates Year :");
        int y = scan.nextInt();
        String date;
        date = Integer.toString(d) + "/" + Integer.toString(m) + "/" + Integer.toString(y);  
        SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
        Date firstdate = null;
        firstdate = dateFormat.parse(date);
        System.out.println(dateFormat.format(firstdate)); 

        System.out.println("Second dates Day :");
        d = scan.nextInt();
        System.out.println("Second dates Month :");
        m = scan.nextInt();
        System.out.println("Second dates Year :");
        y = scan.nextInt();
        date = Integer.toString(d) + "/" + Integer.toString(m) + "/" + Integer.toString(y);  
        Date seconddate = null;
        seconddate = dateFormat.parse(date);
        System.out.println(dateFormat.format(seconddate)); 

        if (seconddate.getTime() > firstdate.getTime()) {
            long sonuc = (long)(seconddate.getTime()- firstdate.getTime())/(3600*24*1000);
            System.out.println("" + sonuc);
        } else if (firstdate.getTime() > seconddate.getTime()) {
            long sonuc = (long)(firstdate.getTime()- seconddate.getTime())/(3600*24*1000);
            System.out.println("" + sonuc);
        } else {
            System.out.println("The dates are equal!");
        }

    }   
}

Answer 9

If you try this with a locale that has daylight saving, and the from and to dates are before and after a daylight saving change the result may be different by 1 day. This is because Date and Calendar use timezones.

If you are only going to be dealing with dates between the years 1900 and 2100, there is a simple calculation which will give you the number of days since 1900:

public static int daysSince1900(Date date) {
    Calendar c = new GregorianCalendar();
    c.setTime(date);

    int year = c.get(Calendar.YEAR);
    if (year < 1900 || year > 2099) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("daysSince1900 - Date must be between 1900 and 2099");
    }
    year -= 1900;
    int month = c.get(Calendar.MONTH) + 1;
    int days = c.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);

    if (month < 3) {
        month += 12;
        year--;
    }
    int yearDays = (int) (year * 365.25);
    int monthDays = (int) ((month + 1) * 30.61);

    return (yearDays + monthDays + days - 63);
}

Thus, to get the difference in days between two dates, you calculate their days since 1900 and calc the difference. Our daysBetween method looks like this:

public static Integer getDaysBetween(Date date1, Date date2) {
    if (date1 == null || date2 == null) {
        return null;
    }

    int days1 = daysSince1900(date1);
    int days2 = daysSince1900(date2);

    if (days1 < days2) {
        return days2 - days1;
    } else {
        return days1 - days2;
    }
}

And don't ask me where this calculation came from because we've used it since the early '90s.