Best way to format a date relative to now on Android

Question

I am creating a feature in an Android app to get an arbitrary date (past, present or future) and find the difference relative to now.

Both my now and

Answer 1

So your computation is based on milliseconds unit, then you format the result with SimpleDateFormat.

For this, you can easily use SimpleDateFormat formatter like this :

Date date = new Date(milliseconds);
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("EEEE dd MMMM yyyy");
String strDate = formatter.format(date);

So your computation should be based on milliseconds unit, then you format the result with SimpleDateFormat.

The pattern ("EEEE dd MMMM yyyy") allows you to get a date format like Monday, 04 February 2013.

You can change the pattern as you like : "EEEE dd/MM/yy", ...

Answer 2

Why not just check for yesterday and tomorrow to avoid the in 0 days/0 days ago bug and leave DateUtils.getRelativeTimeSpanString handle the remaining cases?

String relative = null;

if(now < due && (due-now)<864000){
    relative = "tomorrow";
}else if(now > due && (now-due)<864000){
    relative = "yesterday";
}else{
    relative = DateUtils.getRelativeTimeSpanString(due, now, DateUtils.DAY_IN_MILLIS); // e.g. "in 4 days"
}

Log.d("result", relative);

Edit: You may also add today with a simple check as well.

Answer 3

Finally I have implemented what you wanted..!

First you need to download Joda Time from here

Extract it to any folder and put joda-time-2.2.jar into androidProject/libs folder.

MainActivity

import org.joda.time.DateTime;
import org.joda.time.Days;
import org.joda.time.Months;
import org.joda.time.MutableDateTime;
import org.joda.time.Weeks;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.util.Log;


public class MainActivity extends Activity
{
  private int day ;
  private int month ;
  private int year ;
  private int hour ;
  private int minute ;
  private long selectedTimeInMillis;
  private long currentTimeInMillis;
  private String strDay ="";

 @Override
 protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) 
 {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    year = 2013;
    month = 8;
    day = 10;
    hour = 15;
    minute = 28;

    DateTime selectedTime = new DateTime(year,month,day,hour,minute);
    selectedTimeInMillis = selectedTime.getMillis();

    MutableDateTime epoch = new MutableDateTime();
    epoch.setDate(selectedTimeInMillis); //Set to Epoch time

    DateTime now = new DateTime();

    currentTimeInMillis = now.getMillis();

    int days = Days.daysBetween(epoch, now).getDays();
    int weeks = Weeks.weeksBetween(epoch, now).getWeeks();
    int months = Months.monthsBetween(epoch, now).getMonths();

    Log.v("days since epoch: ",""+days);
    Log.v("weeks since epoch: ",""+weeks);
    Log.v("months since epoch: ",""+months);


    if(selectedTimeInMillis < currentTimeInMillis) //Past 
    {       
        long yesterdayTimeInMillis = currentTimeInMillis - 86400000;

        DateTime today = new DateTime(currentTimeInMillis);
        int year = today.getDayOfYear();
        int intToday = today.getDayOfMonth();
        DateTime yesterday = new DateTime(yesterdayTimeInMillis);
        int intYesterday = yesterday.getDayOfMonth();
        DateTime selectedDay = new DateTime(selectedTimeInMillis);
        int intselectedDay = selectedDay.getDayOfMonth();
        int intselectedYear = selectedDay.getDayOfYear();

        if(intToday == intselectedDay & year == intselectedYear)
        {
            strDay = "today";
        }
        else if(intYesterday == intselectedDay)
        {
            strDay = "yesterday";
        }
        else
        {
            strDay = "before "+ days +" days from today";
        }


    }
    else if(selectedTimeInMillis > currentTimeInMillis) //Future
    {
        long tomorrowTimeInMillis = currentTimeInMillis + 86400000;

        DateTime tomorrow = new DateTime(tomorrowTimeInMillis);
        int intTomorrow = tomorrow.getDayOfMonth();
        DateTime today = new DateTime(selectedTimeInMillis);
        int intToday = today.getDayOfMonth();

        if(intToday == intTomorrow)
        {
            strDay = "tomorrow";
        }
        else
        {
            days = -days;
            strDay = "after "+ days +" days from today";
        }


    }

    Log.v("strDay: ",""+strDay);
  }
}

You just need to change the value of day and you will get the desire output. Currently I have given date 10 as input so output will be today.

I have set date/day = 10 , month = 8 , year = 2013 , hour = 15 , min = 28

For past dates:

input day 9 output yesterday

input day 3 output before 7 days from today

input year 2012 and day 10 output before 365 days from today

For future dates:

input day 11 output tomorrow

input day 27 output after 17 days from today

input day 23 and year 2016 output after 1109 days from today

Answer 4

long now = System.currentTimeMillis();

DateUtils.getRelativeDateTimeString(mContext, now), DateUtils.SECOND_IN_MILLIS, DateUtils.DAY_IN_MILLIS, 0)

a link!