Java TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toDays() gives wrong result

Question

I'm trying to calculate the difference between two days in amount of days. For some reason comparing 01-03-2013 and 01-04-2013 gives the result 30, as does comparing 01-03-2013 and 31-03-2013

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
cal.clear();

cal.set(2013, Calendar.MARCH, 1);
Date start = cal.getTime();

cal.set(2013, Calendar.APRIL, 1);
Date end = cal.getTime();

long days = TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toDays(end.getTime() - start.getTime());
System.out.println("!!! Amount of days : " + String.valueOf(days));

>> 30

cal.set(2013, Calendar.MARCH, 1);
start = cal.getTime();

cal.set(2013, Calendar.MARCH, 31);
end = cal.getTime();

days = TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toDays(end.getTime() - start.getTime());
System.out.println("!!! Amount of days : " + String.valueOf(days));

>> 30

Why is this?

Answer 1

You will get those results if daylight savings started in your time zone on 31 March.

Between 1 March and 1 April, you have 30 24-hour days and one 23-hour day, because of the start of daylight savings. If you divide the total number of milliseconds by 24 x 60 x 60 x 1000, then you will get 30 plus 23/24. This gets rounded down to 30.