Generating Random Date time in java (joda time)

Question

Is it possible to generate a random datetime using Jodatime such that the datetime has the format yyyy-MM-dd HH:MM:SS and it should be able to generate two random datetimes

Answer 1

This follows quite strictly what you asked for (except for the corrected format).

Random random = new Random();

DateTime startTime = new DateTime(random.nextLong()).withMillisOfSecond(0);

Minutes minimumPeriod = Minutes.TWO;
int minimumPeriodInSeconds = minimumPeriod.toStandardSeconds().getSeconds();
int maximumPeriodInSeconds = Hours.ONE.toStandardSeconds().getSeconds();

Seconds randomPeriod = Seconds.seconds(random.nextInt(maximumPeriodInSeconds - minimumPeriodInSeconds));
DateTime endTime = startTime.plus(minimumPeriod).plus(randomPeriod);

DateTimeFormatter dateTimeFormatter = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");

System.out.println(dateTimeFormatter.print(startTime));
System.out.println(dateTimeFormatter.print(endTime));

If you run this, you'll note that you'll get outrageous values for years, but that's simply the consequence of generating a random DateTime over the entire possible range of DateTime (or Date for that matter). But the same technique of limiting the end time to a certain range can be applied to the start time if you want.