Android N Java8 java.time

Question

I updated to the latest Android N sdk. The only thing I don't understand is why I cannot import java.time into my code? I thought Java8 is available through Android N. Then why didn't Google add java.time package?

Answer 1

java.time package was added only in API 26 (Android O): https://developer.android.com/reference/java/time/package-summary.html

UPDATE

But, starting with version 4.0 Android Studio allows using a subset of java.time API (along with a number of others Java 8 language APIs), without requiring a minimum API level for your app:
https://developer.android.com/studio/preview/features#j8-desugar

The following set of APIs is supported in this release:

• Sequential streams (java.util.stream)
• A subset of java.time
• java.util.function
• Recent additions to java.util.{Map,Collection,Comparator}
• Optionals (java.util.Optional, java.util.OptionalInt and java.util.OptionalDouble) and some other new classes useful with the above APIs
• Some additions to java.util.concurrent.atomic (new methods on AtomicInteger, AtomicLong and AtomicReference)
• ConcurrentHashMap (with bug fixes for Android 5.0)

To enable support for these language APIs, one needs to include the following lines build.gradle file:

android {
  defaultConfig {
    // Required when setting minSdkVersion to 20 or lower
    multiDexEnabled true
  }

  compileOptions {
    // Flag to enable support for the new language APIs
    coreLibraryDesugaringEnabled true
    // Sets Java compatibility to Java 8
    sourceCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8
    targetCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8
  }
}

dependencies {
  coreLibraryDesugaring 'com.android.tools:desugar_jdk_libs:1.0.4'
}