Mocking time in Java 8's java.time API

Question

Joda Time has a nice DateTimeUtils.setCurrentMillisFixed() to mock time.

It\'s very practical in tests.

Is there an equivalent in Java 8\'s java.time API

Answer 1

The closest thing is the Clock object. You can create a Clock object using any time you want (or from the System current time). All date.time objects have overloaded now methods that take a clock object instead for the current time. So you can use dependency injection to inject a Clock with a specific time:

public class MyBean {
    private Clock clock;  // dependency inject
    ...
    public void process(LocalDate eventDate) {
      if (eventDate.isBefore(LocalDate.now(clock)) {
        ...
      }
    }
  }

See Clock JavaDoc for more details

Answer 2

I used a new class to hide the Clock.fixed creation and simplify the tests:

public class TimeMachine {

    private static Clock clock = Clock.systemDefaultZone();
    private static ZoneId zoneId = ZoneId.systemDefault();

    public static LocalDateTime now() {
        return LocalDateTime.now(getClock());
    }

    public static void useFixedClockAt(LocalDateTime date){
        clock = Clock.fixed(date.atZone(zoneId).toInstant(), zoneId);
    }

    public static void useSystemDefaultZoneClock(){
        clock = Clock.systemDefaultZone();
    }

    private static Clock getClock() {
        return clock ;
    }
}

public class MyClass {

    public void doSomethingWithTime() {
        LocalDateTime now = TimeMachine.now();
        ...
    }
}

@Test
public void test() {
    LocalDateTime twoWeeksAgo = LocalDateTime.now().minusWeeks(2);

    MyClass myClass = new MyClass();

    TimeMachine.useFixedClockAt(twoWeeksAgo);
    myClass.doSomethingWithTime();

    TimeMachine.useSystemDefaultZoneClock();
    myClass.doSomethingWithTime();

    ...
}