In the following example we are going to calculate the differences between two dates. First, we will need to convert the date into the corresponding value in milliseconds and then do the math, so we can get the difference in days, hours, minutes, etc.
For example to get the difference in day we will need to divide the difference in milliseconds with (24 * 60 * 60 * 1000).
package org.kodejava.util;
import java.util.Calendar;
public class DateDifferenceExample {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Creates two calendars instances
Calendar cal1 = Calendar.getInstance();
Calendar cal2 = Calendar.getInstance();
// Set the date for both of the calendar instance
cal1.set(2020, Calendar.DECEMBER, 30);
cal2.set(2021, Calendar.SEPTEMBER, 21);
// Get the represented date in milliseconds
long millis1 = cal1.getTimeInMillis();
long millis2 = cal2.getTimeInMillis();
// Calculate difference in milliseconds
long diff = millis2 - millis1;
// Calculate difference in seconds
long diffSeconds = diff / 1000;
// Calculate difference in minutes
long diffMinutes = diff / (60 * 1000);
// Calculate difference in hours
long diffHours = diff / (60 * 60 * 1000);
// Calculate difference in days
long diffDays = diff / (24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
System.out.println("In milliseconds: " + diff + " milliseconds.");
System.out.println("In seconds: " + diffSeconds + " seconds.");
System.out.println("In minutes: " + diffMinutes + " minutes.");
System.out.println("In hours: " + diffHours + " hours.");
System.out.println("In days: " + diffDays + " days.");
}
}
Here is the result:
In milliseconds: 22896000016 milliseconds.
In seconds: 22896000 seconds.
In minutes: 381600 minutes.
In hours: 6360 hours.
In days: 265 days.
The better way to get number of days between two dates is to use the Joda Time API. In the following example you can see how to calculate date difference using Joda Time: How do I get number of days between two dates in Joda Time?.