date - How to get year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds of the current moment in Java?

Question

How can I get the year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds of the current moment in Java? I would like to have them as Strings.

Answer 1

You can use the getters of java.time.LocalDateTime for that.

LocalDateTime now = LocalDateTime.now();
int year = now.getYear();
int month = now.getMonthValue();
int day = now.getDayOfMonth();
int hour = now.getHour();
int minute = now.getMinute();
int second = now.getSecond();
int millis = now.get(ChronoField.MILLI_OF_SECOND); // Note: no direct getter available.

System.out.printf("%d-%02d-%02d %02d:%02d:%02d.%03d", year, month, day, hour, minute, second, millis);

Or, when you're not on Java 8 yet, make use of java.util.Calendar.

Calendar now = Calendar.getInstance();
int year = now.get(Calendar.YEAR);
int month = now.get(Calendar.MONTH) + 1; // Note: zero based!
int day = now.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
int hour = now.get(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY);
int minute = now.get(Calendar.MINUTE);
int second = now.get(Calendar.SECOND);
int millis = now.get(Calendar.MILLISECOND);

System.out.printf("%d-%02d-%02d %02d:%02d:%02d.%03d", year, month, day, hour, minute, second, millis);

Either way, this prints as of now:

2010-04-16 15:15:17.816

To convert an int to String, make use of String#valueOf().

---

If your intent is after all to arrange and display them in a human friendly string format, then better use either Java8's java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter (tutorial here),

LocalDateTime now = LocalDateTime.now();
String format1 = now.format(DateTimeFormatter.ISO_DATE_TIME);
String format2 = now.atZone(ZoneId.of("GMT")).format(DateTimeFormatter.RFC_1123_DATE_TIME);
String format3 = now.format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyyMMddHHmmss", Locale.ENGLISH));

System.out.println(format1);
System.out.println(format2);
System.out.println(format3);

or when you're not on Java 8 yet, use java.text.SimpleDateFormat:

Date now = new Date(); // java.util.Date, NOT java.sql.Date or java.sql.Timestamp!
String format1 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS", Locale.ENGLISH).format(now);
String format2 = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z", Locale.ENGLISH).format(now);
String format3 = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMddHHmmss", Locale.ENGLISH).format(now);

System.out.println(format1);
System.out.println(format2);
System.out.println(format3);

Either way, this yields:

2010-04-16T15:15:17.816
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:15:17 GMT
20100416151517

See also:

• Java string to date conversion