How to convert Milliseconds to “X mins, x seconds” in Java?

Question

I want to record the time using System.currentTimeMillis() when a user begins something in my program. When he finishes, I will subtract the current Syste

Answer 1

I have covered this in another answer but you can do:

public static Map computeDiff(Date date1, Date date2) {
    long diffInMillies = date2.getTime() - date1.getTime();
    List units = new ArrayList(EnumSet.allOf(TimeUnit.class));
    Collections.reverse(units);
    Map result = new LinkedHashMap();
    long milliesRest = diffInMillies;
    for ( TimeUnit unit : units ) {
        long diff = unit.convert(milliesRest,TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
        long diffInMilliesForUnit = unit.toMillis(diff);
        milliesRest = milliesRest - diffInMilliesForUnit;
        result.put(unit,diff);
    }
    return result;
}

The output is something like Map:{DAYS=1, HOURS=3, MINUTES=46, SECONDS=40, MILLISECONDS=0, MICROSECONDS=0, NANOSECONDS=0}, with the units ordered.

It's up to you to figure out how to internationalize this data according to the target locale.