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.tutorialspoint;

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
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