168 Java Date Class

Introduction

The Java Util Date class represents a specific instant in time, with millisecond precision.

Class declaration

Following is the declaration for java.util.Date class −

public class Date
   extends Object
   implements Serializable, Cloneable, Comparable<Date>

Class constructors

Sr.No.	Constructor & Description
1	Date() This constructor allocates a Date object and initializes it so that it represents the time at which it was allocated, measured to the nearest millisecond.
2	Date(long date) This constructor allocates a Date object and initializes it to represent the specified number of milliseconds since the standard base time known as "the epoch", namely January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT.

Class methods

Sr.No.	Method & Description
1	boolean after(Date when) This method tests if this date is after the specified date.
2	boolean before(Date when) This method tests if this date is before the specified date.
3	Object clone() This method return a copy of this object.
4	int compareTo(Date anotherDate) This method compares two Dates for ordering.
5	boolean equals(Object obj) This method compares two dates for equality.
6	static Date from​(Instant instant) This method obtains an instance of Date from an Instant object.
7	long getTime() This method returns the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT represented by this Date object.
8	int hashCode() This method returns a hash code value for this object.
9	void setTime(long time) This method sets this Date object to represent a point in time that is time milliseconds after January 1, 1970 00:00:00 GMT.
10	Instant toInstant() This method converts this Date object to an Instant.
11	String toString() This method converts this Date object to a String of the form.

Methods inherited

This class inherits methods from the following classes −

• java.util.Object

Creating a Date instance of current date Example

This Java example demonstrates the from() method of Date class to get Date instance of current time.

package com.codeheap;

import java.time.Instant;

// Import the Date package
import java.util.Date;

// Main public class
public class DateDemo {
   public static void main(String[] args) {

      // create a date of current time
      Date date = Date.from(Instant.now());

      // print the date instance
      System.out.println("Date: " + date.toString());
   }
}

Output

Let us compile and run the above program, this will produce the following result −

Date: Mon Apr 01 10:20:08 IST 2024