Get the date day of the last quarter

Question

I am able to get the last quarter value from the below code:

Date date = new Date();
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.setTime(date);
int year = cal.get(Calendar.YEAR);
int month = cal.get(Calendar.MONTH);
int presentQuarter = (month / 3) + 1;
int lastQuarter = (presentQuarter - 1) > 0 ? presentQuarter - 1 : 4;

But how can I get the last date of the last quarter? (i.e 2017-06-30 which is the last date of the last quarter).

Answer 1

You should go for the java.time API of JDK 8 and try out the ThreeTen-Extra project, to get the desired result as it simplifies these scenarios to a great extent. I suppose you need to work with just date, so you can get the current date as below:

ZoneId zone = ZoneId.systemDefault();
LocalDate today = LocalDate.now (zone);

Then, you can utilize the YearQuarter class of the ThreeTen-Extra project to get the current and last quarter as below:

YearQuarter lastQuarter = YearQuarter.now (zone).minusQuarters(1);
LocalDate lastDayOfLastQuarter = lastQuarter.atEndOfQuarter ();

Disclaimer: I haven't tested the code, it is just to give you an idea of ease with which date-time calculations can be done using these API.

Update: This is in response to your comment that you are using JDK 7, I advise to upgrade to JDK 8 if possible to take advantage of all the new features that have come with it. In case you are not able to do that, you can use the back-port of the java.time for JDK 6 and 7, the ThreeTen-Backport. But in that case you would not be able to make use of the YearQuarter class of the ThreeTen-Extra project as pointed out by Basil Bourque in his comment to this post. Hugo's answer already shows the how-to using only ThreeTen-Backport.

Answer 2

If you're using Java <= 7, you can use the ThreeTen Backport, a great backport for Java 8's new date/time classes. And for Android, there's the ThreeTenABP (more on how to use it here).

All relevant classes are in the org.threeten.bp package.

As you seem to care only about the date (day/month/year), I'm using org.threeten.bp.LocalDate class. I also use the org.threeten.bp.temporal.IsoFields class, which has fields that can properly deal with quarters:

// get today's date
LocalDate today = LocalDate.now();
// get previous quarter
LocalDate previousQuarter = today.minus(1, IsoFields.QUARTER_YEARS);
// get last day in previous quarter
long lastDayOfQuarter = IsoFields.DAY_OF_QUARTER.rangeRefinedBy(previousQuarter).getMaximum();

// get the date corresponding to the last day of quarter
LocalDate lastDayInPreviousQuarter = previousQuarter.with(IsoFields.DAY_OF_QUARTER, lastDayOfQuarter);

The lastDayInPreviousQuarter will be 2017-06-30.

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The code above gets the current date in your system's default timezone, but if you want a more reliable code, you can tell the API to explicity uses one specific timezone, using the org.threeten.bp.ZoneId class. In this example, I'm using mine (America/Sao_Paulo), but you can change to the one that fits best to your system:

// get today's date in a specific timezone
ZoneId zone = ZoneId.of("America/Sao_Paulo");
LocalDate today = LocalDate.now(zone);

The API uses IANA timezones names (always in the format Region/City, like America/Sao_Paulo or Europe/Berlin). Avoid using the 3-letter abbreviations (like CST or PST) because they are ambiguous and not standard.

You can get a list of available timezones (and choose the one that fits best your system) by calling ZoneId.getAvailableZoneIds().

It's preferred to use an explicit timezone because the system's default can be changed without notice, even at runtime.

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If you also need other fields (like hour, minutes, seconds, and so on), check this tutorial that explains all the new types. The tutorial is for Java 8, but the ThreeTen Backport has all the same classes and methods (just the package name is different: in Java 8 is java.time and in ThreeTen Backport is org.threeten.bp).

Answer 3

Try this one. This should not require any extra packages except those in standard jdk package.

Date date = new Date();
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
int year = cal.get(Calendar.YEAR);
int month = cal.get(Calendar.MONTH);
int presentQuarter = (month / 3) + 1;

int lastQuarter = 0;

if(presentQuarter - 1 > 0){
  lastQuarter = presentQuarter - 1;
}else{
  lastQuarter = 4;
  year--;
}

month = lastQuarter * 3 - 1;
cal.set(year, month, 1);
int day = cal.getActualMaximum(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
cal.set(year, month, day);
System.out.println(cal.getTime());