tl;dr
LocalDate.now() // Capture the date-only value current in the JVM’s current default time zone.
.getYear() // Extract the year number from that date.
2018
java.time
Both the java.util.Date
and java.util.Calendar
classes are legacy, now supplanted by the java.time framework built into Java 8 and later.
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, so your results may vary. Better to specify your desired/expected time zone explicitly as an argument.
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( "Africa/Tunis" ) ;
If you want only the date without time-of-day, use LocalDate
. This class lacks time zone info but you can specify a time zone to determine the current date.
ZoneId zoneId = ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" );
LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.now( zoneId );
You can get the various pieces of information with getYear
, getMonth
, and getDayOfMonth
. You will actually get the year number with java.time!
int year = localDate.getYear();
2016
If you want a date-time instead of just a date, use ZonedDateTime
class.
ZonedDateTime zdt = ZonedDateTime.now( zoneId ) ;
About java.time
The java.time framework is built into Java 8 and later. These classes supplant the troublesome old date-time classes such as java.util.Date
, .Calendar
, & java.text.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.
Much of the java.time functionality is back-ported to Java 6 & Java 7 in ThreeTen-Backport and further adapted to Android in ThreeTenABP (see How to use…).
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.