Java program to get the current date without timestamp

Question

I need a Java program to get the current date without a timestamp:

Date d = new Date();

gives me date and timestamp.

But I need only the date, without a timestamp. I use this date to compare with another date object that does not have a timestamp.

On printing

System.out.println("Current Date : " + d)

of d it should print May 11 2010 - 00:00:00.

Jesper · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-03T08:02:38.703

38

A java.util.Date object is a kind of timestamp - it contains a number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC. So you can't use a standard Date object to contain just a day / month / year, without a time.

As far as I know, there's no really easy way to compare dates by only taking the date (and not the time) into account in the standard Java API. You can use class Calendar and clear the hour, minutes, seconds and milliseconds:

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.clear(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY);
cal.clear(Calendar.AM_PM);
cal.clear(Calendar.MINUTE);
cal.clear(Calendar.SECOND);
cal.clear(Calendar.MILLISECOND);

Do the same with another Calendar object that contains the date that you want to compare it to, and use the after() or before() methods to do the comparison.

As explained into the Javadoc of java.util.Calendar.clear(int field):

The HOUR_OF_DAY, HOUR and AM_PM fields are handled independently and the the resolution rule for the time of day is applied. Clearing one of the fields doesn't reset the hour of day value of this Calendar. Use set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0) to reset the hour value.

edit - The answer above is from 2010; in Java 8, there is a new date and time API in the package java.time which is much more powerful and useful than the old java.util.Date and java.util.Calendar classes. Use the new date and time classes instead of the old ones.

edited Mar 03 '17 at 08:02

answered May 10 '10 at 20:55

Jesper

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I didn't know about cal.clear(), I'm going to steal it and update my answer. – staticman May 10 '10 at 21:08
You may if you give me +1 ;-) – Jesper May 10 '10 at 21:08
5

This works, but you have to clear both HOUR and HOUR_OF_DAY to get a true clearing - i.e., setting of the time to 12am. – WhyGeeEx Jul 23 '10 at 18:50
@WhyGeeEx (years after your comment, which may have been true then): Docs as of Java 7 clarify this as not necessary: If HOUR_OF_DAY is the most recent field set, then it takes precedence over "AM_PM + HOUR". http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/Calendar.html#time_resolution "If there is any conflict in calendar field values, Calendar gives priorities to calendar fields that have been set more recently". Then it goes on to specifically show HOUR_OF_DAY vs "AM_PM + HOUR". – ToolmakerSteve Sep 06 '15 at 20:12
@ToolmakerSteve: Yep, 2010 was very pre-Java-7. – WhyGeeEx Sep 17 '15 at 13:56

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered May 10 '10 at 20:56

11

You could always use apache commons' DateUtils class. It has the static method isSameDay() which "Checks if two date objects are on the same day ignoring time."

static boolean isSameDay(Date date1, Date date2)

answered May 10 '10 at 20:56

Jonathan M Davis

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I read the documentation of isSameDay, and I don't get how it works. How can it determine the day without using the time zone? sometimes two Date instances can be either on the same day or on different days (before and after midnight) depending on the time zone being assumed. Does it assume the default timezone of the system? – Eyal Schneider May 10 '10 at 21:59
1

I don't know exactly what it does. You'd have to look at the source to be sure. However, if you look at the Date API, it appears to do everything based on the local time zone. In fact, all of its methods relating to converting to other timezones are deprecated. So, really Date looks like it doesn't really deal with timezones. If you want to do anything with timezones, look at Calendar. – Jonathan M Davis May 10 '10 at 22:23
Date internally is milliseconds since "January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT". I would expect day computations to also be in GMT. – ToolmakerSteve Sep 06 '15 at 20:22
On the other hand, I see that `(new Date).toString()` uses the default locale of current device (on Android anyway) to determine time zone. So `isSameDay` might do the same. – ToolmakerSteve Sep 07 '15 at 09:02

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 21 '14 at 08:51

8

Use DateFormat to solve this problem:

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
DateFormat dateFormat2 = new SimpleDateFormat("MM-dd-yyyy");
print(dateFormat.format(new Date()); // will print like 2014-02-20
print(dateFormat2.format(new Date()); // will print like 02-20-2014

answered Feb 21 '14 at 08:51

This is a simple way of getting the date in a format you want. – Janpan Nov 07 '14 at 08:19

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 18 '12 at 06:24

6

I did as follows and it worked: (Current date without timestamp)

SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy");
Date today = dateFormat.parse(dateFormat.format(new Date()));

answered Sep 18 '12 at 06:24

Kyaw

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it gives timestamp also with date – Vikram Saini Aug 08 '18 at 07:14

score 4 · Answer 5 · edited Dec 17 '16 at 18:25

4

You can get by this date:

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
print(dateFormat.format(new Date());

edited Dec 17 '16 at 18:25

Peter Mortensen

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answered Sep 18 '12 at 07:52

Amit

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aioobe · Answer 6 · 2017-11-26T10:07:25.607

4

You could use

// Format a string containing a date.
import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.GregorianCalendar;
import static java.util.Calendar.*;

Calendar c = GregorianCalendar.getInstance();
String s = String.format("Duke's Birthday: %1$tm %1$te,%1$tY", c);
// -> s == "Duke's Birthday: May 23, 1995"

Have a look at the Formatter API documentation.

edited Nov 26 '17 at 10:07

answered May 10 '10 at 20:50

aioobe

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I will not pass any date as u mentioned. – minil May 10 '10 at 20:51
Updated the code to go through GregorianCalendar.getInstance() which returns current date. – aioobe May 10 '10 at 20:55
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Why use `GregorianCalendar` explicitly - why not just use `Calendar.getInstance()`? – Jesper May 10 '10 at 21:01

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered May 10 '10 at 20:52

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  DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM dd yyyy");
  java.util.Date date = new java.util.Date();
  System.out.println("Current Date : " + dateFormat.format(date));

answered May 10 '10 at 20:52

Il-Bhima

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Basil Bourque · Answer 8 · 2019-10-28T20:57:42.830

The accepted answer by Jesper is correct but now outdated. The java.util.Date and .Calendar classes are notoriously troublesome. Avoid them.

java.time

Instead use the java.time framework, built into Java 8 and later, back-ported to Java 6 & 7 and further adapted to Android.

If you truly do not care about time-of-day and time zones, use LocalDate in the java.time framework ().

LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.of( 2014 , 5 , 6 );

Today

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.

If no time zone is specified, the JVM implicitly applies its current default time zone. That default may change at any moment during runtime(!), so your results may vary. Better to specify your desired/expected time zone explicitly as an argument. If you want to use the JVM’s current default time zone, make your intention clear by calling ZoneId.systemDefault(). If critical, confirm the zone with your user.

Specify a proper time zone name in the format of Continent/Region, such as America/Montreal, Africa/Casablanca, or Pacific/Auckland. Never use the 2-4 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 ) ;

If you want to use the JVM’s current default time zone, ask for it and pass as an argument. If omitted, the code becomes ambiguous to read in that we do not know for certain if you intended to use the default or if you, like so many programmers, were unaware of the issue.

ZoneId z = ZoneId.systemDefault() ;  // Get JVM’s current default time zone.
LocalDate today = LocalDate.now( z ) ;

Moment

If you care about specific moments, specific points on the timeline, do not use LocalDate. If you care about the date as seen through the wall-clock time used by the people of a certain region, do not use LocalDate.

Be aware that if you have any chance of needing to deal with other time zones or UTC, this is the wrong way to go. Naïve programmers tend to think they do not need time zones when in fact they do.

Strings

Call toString to generate a string in standard ISO 8601 format.

String output = localDate.toString();

2014-05-06

For other formats, search Stack Overflow for DateTimeFormatter class.

Joda-Time

Though now supplanted by java.time, you can use the similar LocalDate class in the Joda-Time library (the inspiration for java.time).

LocalDate localDate = new LocalDate( 2014, 5, 6 );

alaster · Answer 9 · 2017-07-13T08:04:26.797

Also you can use apache commons lib DateUtils.truncate():

Date now = new Date();
Date truncated = DateUtils.truncate(now, Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);

Time will be set to 00:00:00 so you can work with this date or print it formatted:

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");

System.out.println(dateFormat.format(now);        // 2010-05-11 11:32:47
System.out.println(dateFormat.format(truncated);  // 2010-05-11 00:00:00

neu242 · Answer 10 · 2013-01-11T09:46:21.547

If you really want to use a Date instead for a Calendar for comparison, this is the shortest piece of code you could use:

Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
Date d = new GregorianCalendar(c.get(Calendar.YEAR), 
                               c.get(Calendar.MONTH), 
                               c.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH)).getTime();

This way you make sure the hours/minute/second/millisecond values are blank.

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Mar 08 '12 at 11:20

private static final DateFormat df1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd"); 
    private static Date NOW = new Date();
    static {
        try {
            NOW = df1.parse(df1.format(new Date()));
        } catch (ParseException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

score 0 · Answer 12 · edited Dec 17 '16 at 18:23

I did as follows and it worked:

calendar1.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
calendar1.set(Calendar.AM_PM, 0);
calendar1.set(Calendar.HOUR, 0);
calendar1.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
calendar1.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
calendar1.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
Date date1 = calendar1.getTime();       // Convert it to date

Do this for other instances to which you want to compare. This logic worked for me; I had to compare the dates whether they are equal or not, but you can do different comparisons (before, after, equals, etc.)

score 0 · Answer 13 · edited Dec 17 '16 at 18:27

I was looking for the same solution and the following worked for me.

    Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
    calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
    calendar.clear(Calendar.HOUR);
    calendar.clear(Calendar.MINUTE);
    calendar.clear(Calendar.SECOND);
    calendar.clear(Calendar.MILLISECOND);

    Date today = calendar.getTime();

Please note that I am using calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0) for HOUR_OF_DAY instead of using the clear method, because it is suggested in Calendar.clear method's javadocs as the following

The HOUR_OF_DAY, HOUR and AM_PM fields are handled independently and the the resolution rule for the time of day is applied. Clearing one of the fields doesn't reset the hour of day value of this Calendar. Use set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0) to reset the hour value.

With the above posted solution I get output as

Wed Sep 11 00:00:00 EDT 2013

Using clear method for HOUR_OF_DAY resets hour at 12 when executing after 12PM or 00 when executing before 12PM.

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered May 10 '10 at 21:06

I think this will work. Use Calendar to manipulate time fields (reset them to zero), then get the Date from the Calendar.

Calendar c = GregorianCalendar.getInstance();
c.clear( Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY );
c.clear( Calendar.MINUTE );
c.clear( Calendar.SECOND );
c.clear( Calendar.MILLISECOND );
Date today = c.getTime();

Or do the opposite. Put the date you want to compare to in a calendar and compare calendar dates

Date compareToDate;  // assume this is set before going in.
Calendar today = GregorianCalendar.getInstance();
Calendar compareTo = GregorianCalendar.getInstance();
compareTo.setTime( compareToDate );
if( today.get( Calendar.YEAR ) == compareTo.get( Calendar.YEAR ) &&
    today.get( Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR  ) == compareTo.get( Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR  ) ) {
  // They are the same day!
}

score 0 · Answer 15 · answered May 10 '10 at 21:23

Here's an inelegant way of doing it quick without additional dependencies.
You could just use java.sql.Date, which extends java.util.Date although for comparisons you will have to compare the Strings.

java.sql.Date dt1 = new java.sql.Date(System.currentTimeMillis());
String dt1Text = dt1.toString();
System.out.println("Current Date1 : " + dt1Text);

Thread.sleep(2000);

java.sql.Date dt2 = new java.sql.Date(System.currentTimeMillis());
String dt2Text = dt2.toString();
System.out.println("Current Date2 : " + dt2Text);

boolean dateResult = dt1.equals(dt2);
System.out.println("Date comparison is " + dateResult);
boolean stringResult = dt1Text.equals(dt2Text);
System.out.println("String comparison is " + stringResult);

Output:

Current Date1 : 2010-05-10
Current Date2 : 2010-05-10
Date comparison is false
String comparison is true

score 0 · Answer 16 · edited Aug 20 '17 at 12:08

0

Here is my code for get only date:

Calendar c=Calendar.getInstance();
DateFormat dm = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
java.util.Date date = new java.util.Date();
System.out.println("current date is :    " + dm.format(date));

edited Aug 20 '17 at 12:08

Giulio Caccin

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answered Aug 20 '17 at 09:33

user5809644

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score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Jul 14 '18 at 06:45

Here is full Example of it.But you have to cast Sting back to Date.

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

//TODO OutPut should LIKE in this format MM dd yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS
public class TestDateExample {

    public static void main(String args[]) throws ParseException {
        SimpleDateFormat changeFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("MM dd yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS");
         Date thisDate = new Date();//changeFormat.parse("10 07 2012"); 
         System.out.println("Current Date : " + thisDate);
         changeFormat.format(thisDate); 
        System.out.println("----------------------------"); 
        System.out.println("After applying formating :");
        String strDateOutput = changeFormat.format(thisDate);
        System.out.println(strDateOutput);

    }

}

Java program to get the current date without timestamp

17 Answers17

java.time

Today

Moment

Strings

Joda-Time

Linked

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