How to get year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds of the current moment in Java?

Question

How can I get the year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds of the current moment in Java? I would like to have them as Strings.

Answer 1

Switch to joda-time and you can do this in three lines

DateTime jodaTime = new DateTime();

DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("YYYY-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS");
System.out.println("jodaTime = " + formatter.print(jodaTime));

You also have direct access to the individual fields of the date without using a Calendar.

System.out.println("year = " + jodaTime.getYear());
System.out.println("month = " + jodaTime.getMonthOfYear());
System.out.println("day = " + jodaTime.getDayOfMonth());
System.out.println("hour = " + jodaTime.getHourOfDay());
System.out.println("minute = " + jodaTime.getMinuteOfHour());
System.out.println("second = " + jodaTime.getSecondOfMinute());
System.out.println("millis = " + jodaTime.getMillisOfSecond());

Output is as follows:

jodaTime = 2010-04-16 18:09:26.060

year = 2010
month = 4
day = 16
hour = 18
minute = 9
second = 26
millis = 60

According to http://www.joda.org/joda-time/

Joda-Time is the de facto standard date and time library for Java. From Java SE 8 onwards, users are asked to migrate to java.time (JSR-310).