Java – How to get current date time – date() and calender()
Written on December 24, 2009 at 8:24 am by
mkyong
In Java, you can get the current date time via three classes – SimpleDateFormat, Date or Calender.
1. Date() + SimpleDateFormat()
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss"); Date date = new Date(); System.out.println(dateFormat.format(date));
2. Calender() + SimpleDateFormat()
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss"); Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(); System.out.println(dateFormat.format(cal.getTime()));
Please visit this SimpleDateFormat documentation to understand the SimpleDateFormat in details.
Java Code example
Here is the full source code to show the use of date() and calender() to get the current date time.
package com.mkyong; import java.util.Date; import java.text.DateFormat; import java.text.SimpleDateFormat; import java.util.Calendar; public class GetCurrentDateTime { public static void main(String[] args) { DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss"); //get current date time with Date() Date date = new Date(); System.out.println(dateFormat.format(date)); //get current date time with Calendar() Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(); System.out.println(dateFormat.format(cal.getTime())); } }
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1. Calendar.getInstance() is noticeably more expensive than new Date(). Not that one shouldn’t use it – it has many important capabilities. But in this comparison, that’s relevant
2. SimpleDateFormat is not thread safe. This isn’t relevant here, but this bites so many people, I mention it by reflex