Date and Time

Introduction: This page will teach you about using the Date import in Java to output or get the current Time and/or Date. When is this needed? Adding a simple clock or date counter to an application adds a slightly more professional look to the overall appeal of the program, as well as having the time handy is always a good thing. What imports are needed? The imports we need to get the current Date and Time are;
  1. import java.util.Date;
  2. import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
these allows us to get the Date and Time, and then format them the way we want to. Example: Here is an example of sending the String "Current Date: " followed by the date in Day DayDay.Month.Month.Year.Year.Year.Year format, followed by a similar technique for the date:
  1. Date dNow = new Date( );
  2. SimpleDateFormat ft = new SimpleDateFormat ("E dd.MM.yyyy'. Current Time:' hh:mm:ss a zzz");
  3. System.out.println("Current Date: " + ft.format(dNow));
As you can probably tell, each character in the SimpleDateFormat stands for something different... E - Day in full letters d - Day in numeric values M - Month in numeric values y - Year in numeric values h - Hours in numeric values m - Minutes in numeric values s - Seconds in numeric values a - "AM"/"PM" z - Timezone. The output given from the example is: Current Date: Sun 01.12.2013. Current Time: 09:29:31 PM GMT Finished!

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