How to subtract X days from a date using Java calendar?

Question

Anyone know a simple way using Java calendar to subtract X days from a date?

I have not been able to find any function which allows me to directly subtract X days fr

Answer 1

I believe a clean and nice way to perform subtraction or addition of any time unit (months, days, hours, minutes, seconds, ...) can be achieved using the java.time.Instant class.

Example for subtracting 5 days from the current time and getting the result as Date:

new Date(Instant.now().minus(5, ChronoUnit.DAYS).toEpochMilli());

Another example for subtracting 1 hour and adding 15 minutes:

Date.from(Instant.now().minus(Duration.ofHours(1)).plus(Duration.ofMinutes(15)));

If you need more accuracy, Instance measures up to nanoseconds. Methods manipulating nanosecond part:

minusNano()
plusNano()
getNano()

Also, keep in mind, that Date is not as accurate as Instant.