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I'm trying to subtract 5 days from a date which comes in as a string initially.
I have had a look at some of the other posts on this subject but the result i get from the code is always incorrect. The main problem is that the year value does not seem to change when the days are subtracted for example - 2012-01-01 subtract 5 days gives me 'Jan 27 2012'
using this code -
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, -5);
Please help.
Did you know that, in Java, month 1
is actually February?
Date februaryTheFirst = new Date(2012,1,1); // equals 2012-02-01
This might explain what you are seeing. If you want to instantiate 2012-01-01 instead, you should do:
Date firstDayOf2012 = new Date(2012,0,1); // this is 2012-01-01
Exactly the same thing happens when dealing with Calendar
:
Calendar.getInstance().set(2012,0,1); // 2012-01-01
Be sure to check the documentation for Date(int, int, int)
and Calendar.set(int, int, int)
. Also, you could check the way you are parsing the string. If you use SimpleDateFormat.parse(...)
, things can be easier.
Strange, isn't it? Go figure... Just as a fun fact, IntelliJ's documentation annotates this second parameter, month, with @MagicConstant
, to remember the programmer that there's something very strange going on.
Calendar.FEBRUARY is 1 and five days before 1 Feb 2012 was 27 Jab 2012.
Your implementation is correct and you are getting the correct value aslo.
Calendar
's Months started with 0
0 = Jan
1 = Feb
so subtracting 5 days
from 2012-01-01
will definitely returns you Jan 27 2012
something is here also which will helps you Why is January month 0 in Java Calendar?
Joda-Time
The Joda-Time 2.7 library makes this work much easier. Just call the minusDays
method.
String input = "2012-01-01";
DateTimeZone zone = DateTimeZone.forID( "America/Montreal" );
DateTime dateTime = new DateTime( input, zone );
DateTime then = now.minusDays( 5 );
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormat.forStyle( "FF" ).withZone( zone ).withLocale( Locale.CANADA_FRENCH );
String output = formatter.print( then );
If you want the beginning of the day, add a call to withTimeAtStartOfDay
. This is unnecessary in your case, when parsing a date-only string with no time-of-day.
DateTime dateTimeAtStartOfDay = new DateTime( input, zone ).withTimeAtStartOfDay();
If you want only date without time-of-day or time zone, use LocalDate
instead of DateTime.
LocalDate then = new LocalDate( "2012-01-01" ).minusDays( 5 );
If you need to convert to the old java.util.Date, call toDate
on the DateTime.
java.time
Java 8 has a new package, java.time. These new classes were inspired by Joda-Time but were re-architected. Both java.time and Joda-Time can solve this particular problem equally well.
Use:
cal.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, -5)
EDIT: sorry. DAY_OF_MONTH
is a synonym to DATE
. Instead of 1
use Calendar.JANUARY
.
This a segment of code that is working on my pc. first you have to get the calendar instance the perform your calculation.
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
System.out.println("Today : " + cal.getTime());
// Subtract 300 days from the calendar
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, -300);
System.out.println("300 days ago: " + cal.getTime());
This is the output that you will get:
Today : Wed Oct 17 10:41:23 EET 2012
300 days ago: Thu Dec 22 10:41:23 EET 2011