Simplify replacement of date object with “today” and “yesterday” strings in Java static method

Question

I have following method that I would like to make shorter or faster if nothing else. Please all comments are welcome:

Bellow method takes a date object, formates i

Answer 1

Another way of comparing dates apart from the accepted answer above using java.util.Date.getTime() (note: long should be used instead of int):

Date today=new Date();
Date dateObj=null;
long diff=0;
try{
    dateObj= formater1.parse(date);
    diff=(today.getTime()-dateObj.getTime())/(86400000);
}catch(Exception e){}
String days="TODAY";
if(diff==1){
    days = "YESTERDAY";
}else if(diff>1){
    days = String.valueOf(diff) + " " +"DAYS AGO";
}

<%=days%> would return:

TODAY

YESTERDAY

x DAYS AGO