Java - Date and Time

Java provides the Date class available in java.util package, this class encapsulates the current date and time.
The Date class supports two constructors as shown in the following table.

Sr.No.	Constructor & Description
1	Date( ) This constructor initializes the object with the current date and time.
2	Date(long millisec) This constructor accepts an argument that equals the number of milliseconds that have elapsed since midnight, January 1, 1970.

Following are the methods of the date class.

Sr.No.	Method & Description
1	boolean after(Date date) Returns true if the invoking Date object contains a date that is later than the one specified by date, otherwise, it returns false.
2	boolean before(Date date) Returns true if the invoking Date object contains a date that is earlier than the one specified by date, otherwise, it returns false.
3	Object clone( ) Duplicates the invoking Date object.
4	int compareTo(Date date) Compares the value of the invoking object with that of date. Returns 0 if the values are equal. Returns a negative value if the invoking object is earlier than date. Returns a positive value if the invoking object is later than date.
5	int compareTo(Object obj) Operates identically to compareTo(Date) if obj is of class Date. Otherwise, it throws a ClassCastException.
6	boolean equals(Object date) Returns true if the invoking Date object contains the same time and date as the one specified by date, otherwise, it returns false.
7	long getTime( ) Returns the number of milliseconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970.
8	int hashCode( ) Returns a hash code for the invoking object.
9	void setTime(long time) Sets the time and date as specified by time, which represents an elapsed time in milliseconds from midnight, January 1, 1970.
10	String toString( ) Converts the invoking Date object into a string and returns the result.

Getting Current Date and Time

This is a very easy method to get current date and time in Java. You can use a simple Date object with toString() method to print the current date and time as follows −

Example

Live Demo

import java.util.Date;
public class DateDemo {

   public static void main(String args[]) {
      // Instantiate a Date object
      Date date = new Date();

      // display time and date using toString()
      System.out.println(date.toString());
   }
}

This will produce the following result −

Output

on May 04 09:51:52 CDT 2009

Date Comparison

Following are the three ways to compare two dates −

• You can use getTime( ) to obtain the number of milliseconds that have elapsed since midnight, January 1, 1970, for both objects and then compare these two values.
• You can use the methods before( ), after( ), and equals( ). Because the 12th of the month comes before the 18th, for example, new Date(99, 2, 12).before(new Date (99, 2, 18)) returns true.
• You can use the compareTo( ) method, which is defined by the Comparable interface and implemented by Date.

Date Formatting Using SimpleDateFormat

SimpleDateFormat is a concrete class for formatting and parsing dates in a locale-sensitive manner. SimpleDateFormat allows you to start by choosing any user-defined patterns for date-time formatting.

Example

Live Demo

import java.util.*;
import java.text.*;

public class DateDemo {

   public static void main(String args[]) {
      Date dNow = new Date( );
      SimpleDateFormat ft = 
      new SimpleDateFormat ("E yyyy.MM.dd 'at' hh:mm:ss a zzz");

      System.out.println("Current Date: " + ft.format(dNow));
   }
}

This will produce the following result −

Output

Current Date: Sun 2004.07.18 at 04:14:09 PM PDT

Simple DateFormat Format Codes

To specify the time format, use a time pattern string. In this pattern, all ASCII letters are reserved as pattern letters, which are defined as the following −

Character	Description	Example
G	Era designator	AD
y	Year in four digits	2001
M	Month in year	July or 07
d	Day in month	10
h	Hour in A.M./P.M. (1~12)	12
H	Hour in day (0~23)	22
m	Minute in hour	30
s	Second in minute	55
S	Millisecond	234
E	Day in week	Tuesday
D	Day in year	360
F	Day of week in month	2 (second Wed. in July)
w	Week in year	40
W	Week in month	1
a	A.M./P.M. marker	PM
k	Hour in day (1~24)	24
K	Hour in A.M./P.M. (0~11)	10
z	Time zone	Eastern Standard Time
'	Escape for text	Delimiter
"	Single quote	`

Date Formatting Using printf

Date and time formatting can be done very easily using printf method. You use a two-letter format, starting with t and ending in one of the letters of the table as shown in the following code.

Example

Live Demo

import java.util.Date;
public class DateDemo {

   public static void main(String args[]) {
      // Instantiate a Date object
      Date date = new Date();

      // display time and date
      String str = String.format("Current Date/Time : %tc", date );

      System.out.printf(str);
   }
}

This will produce the following result −

Output

Current Date/Time : Sat Dec 15 16:37:57 MST 2012

It would be a bit silly if you had to supply the date multiple times to format each part. For that reason, a format string can indicate the index of the argument to be formatted.
The index must immediately follow the % and it must be terminated by a $.

Example

Live Demo

import java.util.Date;
public class DateDemo {

   public static void main(String args[]) {
      // Instantiate a Date object
      Date date = new Date();
  
      // display time and date
      System.out.printf("%1$s %2$tB %2$td, %2$tY", "Due date:", date);
   }
}

This will produce the following result −

Output

Due date: February 09, 2004

Alternatively, you can use the < flag. It indicates that the same argument as in the preceding format specification should be used again.

Example

Live Demo

import java.util.Date;
public class DateDemo {

   public static void main(String args[]) {
      // Instantiate a Date object
      Date date = new Date();
  
      // display formatted date
      System.out.printf("%s %tB %<te, %<tY", "Due date:", date);
   }
}

This will produce the following result −

Output

Due date: February 09, 2004

Date and Time Conversion Characters

Character	Description	Example
c	Complete date and time	Mon May 04 09:51:52 CDT 2009
F	ISO 8601 date	2004-02-09
D	U.S. formatted date (month/day/year)	02/09/2004
T	24-hour time	18:05:19
r	12-hour time	06:05:19 pm
R	24-hour time, no seconds	18:05
Y	Four-digit year (with leading zeroes)	2004
y	Last two digits of the year (with leading zeroes)	04
C	First two digits of the year (with leading zeroes)	20
B	Full month name	February
b	Abbreviated month name	Feb
m	Two-digit month (with leading zeroes)	02
d	Two-digit day (with leading zeroes)	03
e	Two-digit day (without leading zeroes)	9
A	Full weekday name	Monday
a	Abbreviated weekday name	Mon
j	Three-digit day of year (with leading zeroes)	069
H	Two-digit hour (with leading zeroes), between 00 and 23	18
k	Two-digit hour (without leading zeroes), between 0 and 23	18
I	Two-digit hour (with leading zeroes), between 01 and 12	06
l	Two-digit hour (without leading zeroes), between 1 and 12	6
M	Two-digit minutes (with leading zeroes)	05
S	Two-digit seconds (with leading zeroes)	19
L	Three-digit milliseconds (with leading zeroes)	047
N	Nine-digit nanoseconds (with leading zeroes)	047000000
P	Uppercase morning or afternoon marker	PM
p	Lowercase morning or afternoon marker	pm
z	RFC 822 numeric offset from GMT	-0800
Z	Time zone	PST
s	Seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 GMT	1078884319
Q	Milliseconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 GMT	1078884319047

There are other useful classes related to Date and time. For more details, you can refer to Java Standard documentation.

Parsing Strings into Dates

The SimpleDateFormat class has some additional methods, notably parse( ), which tries to parse a string according to the format stored in the given SimpleDateFormat object.

Example

Live Demo

import java.util.*;
import java.text.*;
  
public class DateDemo {

   public static void main(String args[]) {
      SimpleDateFormat ft = new SimpleDateFormat ("yyyy-MM-dd"); 
      String input = args.length == 0 ? "1818-11-11" : args[0]; 

      System.out.print(input + " Parses as "); 
      Date t;
      try {
         t = ft.parse(input); 
         System.out.println(t); 
      } catch (ParseException e) { 
         System.out.println("Unparseable using " + ft); 
      }
   }
}

A sample run of the above program would produce the following result −

Output

1818-11-11 Parses as Wed Nov 11 00:00:00 EST 1818

Sleeping for a While

You can sleep for any period of time from one millisecond up to the lifetime of your computer. For example, the following program would sleep for 3 seconds −

Example

Live Demo

import java.util.*;
public class SleepDemo {

   public static void main(String args[]) {
      try { 
         System.out.println(new Date( ) + "\n"); 
         Thread.sleep(5*60*10); 
         System.out.println(new Date( ) + "\n"); 
      } catch (Exception e) {
         System.out.println("Got an exception!"); 
      }
   }
}

This will produce the following result −

Output

Sun May 03 18:04:41 GMT 2009
Sun May 03 18:04:51 GMT 2009

Measuring Elapsed Time

Sometimes, you may need to measure point in time in milliseconds. So let's re-write the above example once again −

Example

Live Demo

import java.util.*;
public class DiffDemo {

   public static void main(String args[]) {
      try {
         long start = System.currentTimeMillis( );
         System.out.println(new Date( ) + "\n");
         
         Thread.sleep(5*60*10);
         System.out.println(new Date( ) + "\n");
         
         long end = System.currentTimeMillis( );
         long diff = end - start;
         System.out.println("Difference is : " + diff);
      } catch (Exception e) {
         System.out.println("Got an exception!");
      }
   }
}

This will produce the following result −

Output

Sun May 03 18:16:51 GMT 2009
Sun May 03 18:16:57 GMT 2009
Difference is : 5993

GregorianCalendar Class

GregorianCalendar is a concrete implementation of a Calendar class that implements the normal Gregorian calendar with which you are familiar. We did not discuss Calendar class in this tutorial, you can look up standard Java documentation for this.
The getInstance( ) method of Calendar returns a GregorianCalendar initialized with the current date and time in the default locale and time zone. GregorianCalendar defines two fields: AD and BC. These represent the two eras defined by the Gregorian calendar.
There are also several constructors for GregorianCalendar objects −

Sr.No.	Constructor & Description
1	GregorianCalendar() Constructs a default GregorianCalendar using the current time in the default time zone with the default locale.
2	GregorianCalendar(int year, int month, int date) Constructs a GregorianCalendar with the given date set in the default time zone with the default locale.
3	GregorianCalendar(int year, int month, int date, int hour, int minute) Constructs a GregorianCalendar with the given date and time set for the default time zone with the default locale.
4	GregorianCalendar(int year, int month, int date, int hour, int minute, int second) Constructs a GregorianCalendar with the given date and time set for the default time zone with the default locale.
5	GregorianCalendar(Locale aLocale) Constructs a GregorianCalendar based on the current time in the default time zone with the given locale.
6	GregorianCalendar(TimeZone zone) Constructs a GregorianCalendar based on the current time in the given time zone with the default locale.
7	GregorianCalendar(TimeZone zone, Locale aLocale) Constructs a GregorianCalendar based on the current time in the given time zone with the given locale.

Here is the list of few useful support methods provided by GregorianCalendar class −

Sr.No.	Method & Description
1	void add(int field, int amount) Adds the specified (signed) amount of time to the given time field, based on the calendar's rules.
2	protected void computeFields() Converts UTC as milliseconds to time field values.
3	protected void computeTime() Overrides Calendar Converts time field values to UTC as milliseconds.
4	boolean equals(Object obj) Compares this GregorianCalendar to an object reference.
5	int get(int field) Gets the value for a given time field.
6	int getActualMaximum(int field) Returns the maximum value that this field could have, given the current date.
7	int getActualMinimum(int field) Returns the minimum value that this field could have, given the current date.
8	int getGreatestMinimum(int field) Returns highest minimum value for the given field if varies.
9	Date getGregorianChange() Gets the Gregorian Calendar change date.
10	int getLeastMaximum(int field) Returns lowest maximum value for the given field if varies.
11	int getMaximum(int field) Returns maximum value for the given field.
12	Date getTime() Gets this Calendar's current time.
13	long getTimeInMillis() Gets this Calendar's current time as a long.
14	TimeZone getTimeZone() Gets the time zone.
15	int getMinimum(int field) Returns minimum value for the given field.
16	int hashCode() Overrides hashCode.
17	boolean isLeapYear(int year) Determines if the given year is a leap year.
18	void roll(int field, boolean up) Adds or subtracts (up/down) a single unit of time on the given time field without changing larger fields.
19	void set(int field, int value) Sets the time field with the given value.
20	void set(int year, int month, int date) Sets the values for the fields year, month, and date.
21	void set(int year, int month, int date, int hour, int minute) Sets the values for the fields year, month, date, hour, and minute.
22	void set(int year, int month, int date, int hour, int minute, int second) Sets the values for the fields year, month, date, hour, minute, and second.
23	void setGregorianChange(Date date) Sets the GregorianCalendar change date.
24	void setTime(Date date) Sets this Calendar's current time with the given Date.
25	void setTimeInMillis(long millis) Sets this Calendar's current time from the given long value.
26	void setTimeZone(TimeZone value) Sets the time zone with the given time zone value.
27	String toString() Returns a string representation of this calendar.

Example

Live Demo

import java.util.*;
public class GregorianCalendarDemo {

   public static void main(String args[]) {
      String months[] = {"Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", 
         "Oct", "Nov", "Dec"};
      
      int year;
      // Create a Gregorian calendar initialized
      // with the current date and time in the
      // default locale and timezone.
      
      GregorianCalendar gcalendar = new GregorianCalendar();
      
      // Display current time and date information.
      System.out.print("Date: ");
      System.out.print(months[gcalendar.get(Calendar.MONTH)]);
      System.out.print(" " + gcalendar.get(Calendar.DATE) + " ");
      System.out.println(year = gcalendar.get(Calendar.YEAR));
      System.out.print("Time: ");
      System.out.print(gcalendar.get(Calendar.HOUR) + ":");
      System.out.print(gcalendar.get(Calendar.MINUTE) + ":");
      System.out.println(gcalendar.get(Calendar.SECOND));

      // Test if the current year is a leap year
      if(gcalendar.isLeapYear(year)) {
         System.out.println("The current year is a leap year");
      }else {
         System.out.println("The current year is not a leap year");
      }
   }
}

This will produce the following result −

Output

Date: Apr 22 2009
Time: 11:25:27
The current year is not a leap year

For a complete list of constant available in Calendar class, you can refer the standard Java documentation.

The Java™ Tutorials - Networking Basics

Networking Basics

Computers running on the Internet communicate to each other using either the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), as this diagram illustrates:
When you write Java programs that communicate over the network, you are programming at the application layer. Typically, you don't need to concern yourself with the TCP and UDP layers. Instead, you can use the classes in the java.net package. These classes provide system-independent network communication. However, to decide which Java classes your programs should use, you do need to understand how TCP and UDP differ.

TCP

When two applications want to communicate to each other reliably, they establish a connection and send data back and forth over that connection. This is analogous to making a telephone call. If you want to speak to Aunt Beatrice in Kentucky, a connection is established when you dial her phone number and she answers. You send data back and forth over the connection by speaking to one another over the phone lines. Like the phone company, TCP guarantees that data sent from one end of the connection actually gets to the other end and in the same order it was sent. Otherwise, an error is reported.
TCP provides a point-to-point channel for applications that require reliable communications. The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and Telnet are all examples of applications that require a reliable communication channel. The order in which the data is sent and received over the network is critical to the success of these applications. When HTTP is used to read from a URL, the data must be received in the order in which it was sent. Otherwise, you end up with a jumbled HTML file, a corrupt zip file, or some other invalid information.

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Definition: TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a connection-based protocol that provides a reliable flow of data between two computers.

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UDP

The UDP protocol provides for communication that is not guaranteed between two applications on the network. UDP is not connection-based like TCP. Rather, it sends independent packets of data, called datagrams, from one application to another. Sending datagrams is much like sending a letter through the postal service: The order of delivery is not important and is not guaranteed, and each message is independent of any other.

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Definition: UDP (User Datagram Protocol) is a protocol that sends independent packets of data, called datagrams, from one computer to another with no guarantees about arrival. UDP is not connection-based like TCP.

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For many applications, the guarantee of reliability is critical to the success of the transfer of information from one end of the connection to the other. However, other forms of communication don't require such strict standards. In fact, they may be slowed down by the extra overhead or the reliable connection may invalidate the service altogether.
Consider, for example, a clock server that sends the current time to its client when requested to do so. If the client misses a packet, it doesn't really make sense to resend it because the time will be incorrect when the client receives it on the second try. If the client makes two requests and receives packets from the server out of order, it doesn't really matter because the client can figure out that the packets are out of order and make another request. The reliability of TCP is unnecessary in this instance because it causes performance degradation and may hinder the usefulness of the service.
Another example of a service that doesn't need the guarantee of a reliable channel is the ping command. The purpose of the ping command is to test the communication between two programs over the network. In fact, ping needs to know about dropped or out-of-order packets to determine how good or bad the connection is. A reliable channel would invalidate this service altogether.
The UDP protocol provides for communication that is not guaranteed between two applications on the network. UDP is not connection-based like TCP. Rather, it sends independent packets of data from one application to another. Sending datagrams is much like sending a letter through the mail service: The order of delivery is not important and is not guaranteed, and each message is independent of any others.

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Note: Many firewalls and routers have been configured not to allow UDP packets. If you're having trouble connecting to a service outside your firewall, or if clients are having trouble connecting to your service, ask your system administrator if UDP is permitted.

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Understanding Ports

Generally speaking, a computer has a single physical connection to the network. All data destined for a particular computer arrives through that connection. However, the data may be intended for different applications running on the computer. So how does the computer know to which application to forward the data? Through the use of ports.
Data transmitted over the Internet is accompanied by addressing information that identifies the computer and the port for which it is destined. The computer is identified by its 32-bit IP address, which IP uses to deliver data to the right computer on the network. Ports are identified by a 16-bit number, which TCP and UDP use to deliver the data to the right application.
In connection-based communication such as TCP, a server application binds a socket to a specific port number. This has the effect of registering the server with the system to receive all data destined for that port. A client can then rendezvous with the server at the server's port, as illustrated here:

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Definition: The TCP and UDP protocols use ports to map incoming data to a particular process running on a computer.

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In datagram-based communication such as UDP, the datagram packet contains the port number of its destination and UDP routes the packet to the appropriate application, as illustrated in this figure:
Port numbers range from 0 to 65,535 because ports are represented by 16-bit numbers. The port numbers ranging from 0 - 1023 are restricted; they are reserved for use by well-known services such as HTTP and FTP and other system services. These ports are called well-known ports. Your applications should not attempt to bind to them.

Networking Classes in the JDK

Through the classes in java.net, Java programs can use TCP or UDP to communicate over the Internet. The URL, URLConnection, Socket, and ServerSocket classes all use TCP to communicate over the network. The DatagramPacket, DatagramSocket, and MulticastSocketclasses are for use with UDP.