How do I get difference between two dates in android?, tried every thing and post

Question

I saw all the post in here and still I can\'t figure how do get difference between two android dates.

This is what I do:

long diff = date1.getTime()          


        

Answer 1

java.time.Duration

Use java.time.Duration:

    Duration diff = Duration.between(instant2, instant1);
    System.out.println(diff);

This will print something like

PT109H27M21S

This means a period of time of 109 hours 27 minutes 21 seconds. If you want someting more human-readable — I’ll give the Java 9 version first, it’s simplest:

    String formattedDiff = String.format(Locale.ENGLISH,
            "%d days %d hours %d minutes %d seconds",
            diff.toDays(), diff.toHoursPart(), diff.toMinutesPart(), diff.toSecondsPart());
    System.out.println(formattedDiff);

Now we get

4 days 13 hours 27 minutes 21 seconds

The Duration class is part of java.time the modern Java date and time API. This is bundled on newer Android devices. On older devices, get ThreeTenABP and add it to your project, and make sure to import org.threeten.bp.Duration and other date-time classes you may need from the same package.

Assuming you still haven’t got the Java 9 version, you may subtract the larger units in turn to get the smaller ones:

    long days = diff.toDays();
    diff = diff.minusDays(days);
    long hours = diff.toHours();
    diff = diff.minusHours(hours);
    long minutes = diff.toMinutes();
    diff = diff.minusMinutes(minutes);
    long seconds = diff.toSeconds();

Then you can format the four variables as above.

What did you do wrong?

A Date represents a point in time. It was never meant for representing an amount of time, a duration, and it isn’t suited for it. Trying to make that work would at best lead to confusing and hard-to-maintain code. You don’t want that, so please don’t.

Question: Doesn’t java.time require Android API level 26?

java.time works nicely on both older and newer Android devices. It just requires at least Java 6.

• In Java 8 and later and on newer Android devices (from API level 26) the modern API comes built-in.
• In non-Android Java 6 and 7 get the ThreeTen Backport, the backport of the modern classes (ThreeTen for JSR 310; see the links at the bottom).
• On (older) Android use the Android edition of ThreeTen Backport. It’s called ThreeTenABP. And make sure you import the date and time classes from org.threeten.bp with subpackages.

Links

• Oracle tutorial: Date Time, explaining how to use java.time.
• ThreeTen Backport project, the backport of java.time to Java 6 and 7
• ThreeTenABP, Android edition of ThreeTen Backport
• Question: How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project, with a very thorough explanation.
• Java Specification Request (JSR) 310.