I'm using Java's java.util.Date
class in Scala and want to compare a Date
object and the current time. I know I can calculate the delta by using getTime():
(new java.util.Date()).getTime() - oldDate.getTime()
However, this just leaves me with a long
representing milliseconds. Is there any simpler, nicer way to get a time delta?
/**
* Get a diff between two dates
* @param date1 the oldest date
* @param date2 the newest date
* @param timeUnit the unit in which you want the diff
* @return the diff value, in the provided unit
*/
public static long getDateDiff(Date date1, Date date2, TimeUnit timeUnit) {
long diffInMillies = date2.getTime() - date1.getTime();
return timeUnit.convert(diffInMillies,TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
}
And then can you call:
getDateDiff(date1,date2,TimeUnit.MINUTES);
to get the diff of the 2 dates in minutes unit.
TimeUnit
is java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit
, a standard Java enum going from nanos to days.
public static Map<TimeUnit,Long> computeDiff(Date date1, Date date2) {
long diffInMillies = date2.getTime() - date1.getTime();
//create the list
List<TimeUnit> units = new ArrayList<TimeUnit>(EnumSet.allOf(TimeUnit.class));
Collections.reverse(units);
//create the result map of TimeUnit and difference
Map<TimeUnit,Long> result = new LinkedHashMap<TimeUnit,Long>();
long milliesRest = diffInMillies;
for ( TimeUnit unit : units ) {
//calculate difference in millisecond
long diff = unit.convert(milliesRest,TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
long diffInMilliesForUnit = unit.toMillis(diff);
milliesRest = milliesRest - diffInMilliesForUnit;
//put the result in the map
result.put(unit,diff);
}
return result;
}
The output is something like Map:{DAYS=1, HOURS=3, MINUTES=46, SECONDS=40, MILLISECONDS=0, MICROSECONDS=0, NANOSECONDS=0}
, with the units ordered.
You just have to convert that map to an user-friendly string.
The above code snippets compute a simple diff between 2 instants. It can cause problems during a daylight saving switch, like explained in this post. This means if you compute the diff between dates with no time you may have a missing day/hour.
In my opinion the date diff is kind of subjective, especially on days. You may:
count the number of 24h elapsed time: day+1 - day = 1 day = 24h
count the number of elapsed time, taking care of daylight savings: day+1 - day = 1 = 24h (but using midnight time and daylight savings it could be 0 day and 23h)
count the number of day switches
, which means day+1 1pm - day 11am = 1 day, even if the elapsed time is just 2h (or 1h if there is a daylight saving :p)
My answer is valid if your definition of date diff on days match the 1st case
If you are using JodaTime you can get the diff for 2 instants (millies backed ReadableInstant) dates with:
Interval interval = new Interval(oldInstant, new Instant());
But you can also get the diff for Local dates/times:
// returns 4 because of the leap year of 366 days
new Period(LocalDate.now(), LocalDate.now().plusDays(365*5), PeriodType.years()).getYears()
// this time it returns 5
new Period(LocalDate.now(), LocalDate.now().plusDays(365*5+1), PeriodType.years()).getYears()
// And you can also use these static methods
Years.yearsBetween(LocalDate.now(), LocalDate.now().plusDays(365*5)).getYears()