Calculating days between two dates with Java

Question

I want a Java program that calculates days between two dates.

1. Type the first date (German notation; with whitespaces: \"dd mm yyyy\")
2. Type the second

Answer 1

UPDATE: The original answer from 2013 is now outdated because some of the classes have been replaced. The new way of doing this is using the new java.time classes.

DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd MM yyyy");
String inputString1 = "23 01 1997";
String inputString2 = "27 04 1997";

try {
    LocalDateTime date1 = LocalDate.parse(inputString1, dtf);
    LocalDateTime date2 = LocalDate.parse(inputString2, dtf);
    long daysBetween = Duration.between(date1, date2).toDays();
    System.out.println ("Days: " + daysBetween);
} catch (ParseException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Note that this solution will give the number of actual 24 hour-days, not the number of calendar days. For the latter, use

long daysBetween = ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(date1, date2)

---

Original answer (outdated as of Java 8)

You are making some conversions with your Strings that are not necessary. There is a SimpleDateFormat class for it - try this:

SimpleDateFormat myFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd MM yyyy");
String inputString1 = "23 01 1997";
String inputString2 = "27 04 1997";

try {
    Date date1 = myFormat.parse(inputString1);
    Date date2 = myFormat.parse(inputString2);
    long diff = date2.getTime() - date1.getTime();
    System.out.println ("Days: " + TimeUnit.DAYS.convert(diff, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS));
} catch (ParseException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

EDIT: Since there have been some discussions regarding the correctness of this code: it does indeed take care of leap years. However, the TimeUnit.DAYS.convert function loses precision since milliseconds are converted to days (see the linked doc for more info). If this is a problem, diff can also be converted by hand:

float days = (diff / (1000*60*60*24));

Note that this is a float value, not necessarily an int.

Answer 2

In Java 8, you could accomplish this by using LocalDate and DateTimeFormatter. From the Javadoc of LocalDate:

LocalDate is an immutable date-time object that represents a date, often viewed as year-month-day.

And the pattern can be constructed using DateTimeFormatter. Here is the Javadoc, and the relevant pattern characters I used:

Symbol - Meaning - Presentation - Examples

y - year-of-era - year - 2004; 04

M/L - month-of-year - number/text - 7; 07; Jul; July; J

d - day-of-month - number - 10

Here is the example:

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.time.temporal.ChronoUnit;

public class Java8DateExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        final DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd MM yyyy");
        final BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
        final String firstInput = reader.readLine();
        final String secondInput = reader.readLine();
        final LocalDate firstDate = LocalDate.parse(firstInput, formatter);
        final LocalDate secondDate = LocalDate.parse(secondInput, formatter);
        final long days = ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(firstDate, secondDate);
        System.out.println("Days between: " + days);
    }
}

Example input/output with more recent last:

23 01 1997
27 04 1997
Days between: 94

With more recent first:

27 04 1997
23 01 1997
Days between: -94

Well, you could do it as a method in a simpler way:

public static long betweenDates(Date firstDate, Date secondDate) throws IOException
{
    return ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(firstDate.toInstant(), secondDate.toInstant());
}

Answer 3

We can make use of LocalDate and ChronoUnit java library, Below code is working fine. Date should be in format yyyy-MM-dd.

import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.temporal.ChronoUnit;
import java.util.*;
class Solution {
    public int daysBetweenDates(String date1, String date2) {
        LocalDate dt1 = LocalDate.parse(date1);
        LocalDate dt2= LocalDate.parse(date2);

        long diffDays = ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(dt1, dt2);

        return Math.abs((int)diffDays);
    }
}

Answer 4

The best way, and it converts to a String as bonus ;)

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    try {
        //Dates to compare
        String CurrentDate=  "09/24/2015";
        String FinalDate=  "09/26/2015";

        Date date1;
        Date date2;

        SimpleDateFormat dates = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy");

        //Setting dates
        date1 = dates.parse(CurrentDate);
        date2 = dates.parse(FinalDate);

        //Comparing dates
        long difference = Math.abs(date1.getTime() - date2.getTime());
        long differenceDates = difference / (24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);

        //Convert long to String
        String dayDifference = Long.toString(differenceDates);

        Log.e("HERE","HERE: " + dayDifference);
    }
    catch (Exception exception) {
        Log.e("DIDN'T WORK", "exception " + exception);
    }
}

Answer 5

// date format, it will be like "2015-01-01"
private static final String DATE_FORMAT = "yyyy-MM-dd";

// convert a string to java.util.Date
public static Date convertStringToJavaDate(String date)
        throws ParseException {
    DateFormat dataFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(DATE_FORMAT);
    return dataFormat.parse(date);
}

// plus days to a date
public static Date plusJavaDays(Date date, int days) {
    // convert to jata-time
    DateTime fromDate = new DateTime(date);
    DateTime toDate = fromDate.plusDays(days);
    // convert back to java.util.Date
    return toDate.toDate();
}

// return a list of dates between the fromDate and toDate
public static List<Date> getDatesBetween(Date fromDate, Date toDate) {
    List<Date> dates = new ArrayList<Date>(0);
    Date date = fromDate;
    while (date.before(toDate) || date.equals(toDate)) {
        dates.add(date);
        date = plusJavaDays(date, 1);
    }
    return dates;
}