Simplify replacement of date object with “today” a

Question

I have following method that I would like to make shorter or faster if nothing else. Please all comments are welcome:

Bellow method takes a date object, formates it ("EEE hh:mma MMM d, yyyy") and then figures out if the date is today or yesterday and than, if it is, it returns "(Yesterday | Today) hh:mma" formated string.

    public static String formatToYesterdayOrToday(String date) {
    SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE hh:mma MMM d, yyyy");
    Date in = null;

    try {
        in = sdf.parse(date);
    } catch (ParseException e) {
        log.debug("Date parsing error:", e);
    }

    Calendar x = Calendar.getInstance();
    x.setTime(in);

    String hour = Integer.toString(x.get(Calendar.HOUR));
    String minute = Integer.toString(x.get(Calendar.MINUTE));
    String pm_am = x.get(Calendar.AM_PM) == Calendar.AM ? "AM" : "PM";

    x.set(Calendar.HOUR, 0);
    x.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
    x.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
    x.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
    x.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);

    Calendar today = Calendar.getInstance();
    today.set(Calendar.HOUR, 0);
    today.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
    today.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
    today.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
    today.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);

    Calendar yesterday = Calendar.getInstance();
    yesterday.set(Calendar.HOUR, 0);
    yesterday.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
    yesterday.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
    yesterday.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
    yesterday.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
    yesterday.add(Calendar.DATE, -1);

    if (x.compareTo(today) == 0) {
        return "Today " + hour + ":" + minute + pm_am;
    }
    if (x.compareTo(yesterday) == 0) {
        return "Yesterday " + hour + ":" + minute + pm_am;
    }
    return date;
}

Answer 1

I know I am late to this party. But I have shortest solution for this problem. If you want to show "Today" or "Yesterday" based on the Date then you just need to use this

String strDate = "";
if (DateUtils.isToday(date.getTime()))
    strDate = "Today";
else if (DateUtils.isToday(date.getTime() + DateUtils.DAY_IN_MILLIS))
    strDate = "Yesterday";

here variable date is the Date object.

Answer 2

This is extended versino of Balusc's implementation.

Try this, i implemented it using joda-datatime2.2.jar and SimpleDateFormat

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;
import org.joda.time.DateMidnight;
import org.joda.time.DateTime;
import org.joda.time.Days;
public class SmartDateTimeUtil {
private static String getHourMinuteString(Date date){
    SimpleDateFormat hourMinuteFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(" h:m a");
    return hourMinuteFormat.format(date);
}

private static String getDateString(Date date){
    SimpleDateFormat dateStringFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE',' MMM d y',' h:m a");
    return dateStringFormat.format(date);
}

private static boolean isToday (DateTime dateTime) {
       DateMidnight today = new DateMidnight();
       return today.equals(dateTime.toDateMidnight());
}

private static boolean isYesterday (DateTime dateTime) {
       DateMidnight yesterday = (new DateMidnight()).minusDays(1);
       return yesterday.equals(dateTime.toDateMidnight());
}

private static boolean isTomorrow(DateTime dateTime){
    DateMidnight tomorrow = (new DateMidnight()).plusDays(1);
       return tomorrow.equals(dateTime.toDateMidnight());
}
private static String getDayString(Date date) {
        SimpleDateFormat weekdayFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE',' h:m a");
        String s;
        if (isToday(new DateTime(date)))
            s = "Today";
        else if (isYesterday(new DateTime(date)))
            s = "Yesterday," + getHourMinuteString(date);
        else if(isTomorrow(new DateTime(date)))
            s = "Tomorrow," +getHourMinuteString(date);
        else
            s = weekdayFormat.format(date);
        return s;
}

public static String getDateString_shortAndSmart(Date date) {
        String s;
        DateTime nowDT = new DateTime();
        DateTime dateDT = new DateTime(date);
        int days = Days.daysBetween(dateDT, nowDT).getDays();   
        if (isToday(new DateTime(date)))
            s = "Today,"+getHourMinuteString(date);
        else if (days < 7)
            s = getDayString(date);
        else
            s = getDateString(date);
        return s;
}

}

Simple cases to use and test the Util class:

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;

public class SmartDateTimeUtilTest {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Date now:"+SmartDateTimeUtil.getDateString_shortAndSmart(new Date()));
        System.out.println("Date 5 days before :"+SmartDateTimeUtil.getDateString_shortAndSmart(getFutureDay(-5)));
        System.out.println("Date 1 day before :"+SmartDateTimeUtil.getDateString_shortAndSmart(getFutureDay(-1)));
        System.out.println("Date last month:"+SmartDateTimeUtil.getDateString_shortAndSmart(getFutureMonth(-1)));
        System.out.println("Date last year:"+SmartDateTimeUtil.getDateString_shortAndSmart(getFutureDate(-1)));
        System.out.println("Date 1 day after :"+SmartDateTimeUtil.getDateString_shortAndSmart(getFutureDay(1)));
    }
    public static Date getFutureDate(int numberOfYears){
        Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
        c.setTime(new Date());
        c.add(Calendar.YEAR, numberOfYears); 
        return c.getTime();
    }
    public static Date getFutureMonth(int numberOfYears){
        Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
        c.setTime(new Date());
        c.add(Calendar.MONTH, numberOfYears); 
        return c.getTime();
    }

    public static Date getFutureDay(int numberOfYears){
        Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
        c.setTime(new Date());
        c.add(Calendar.DATE, numberOfYears); 
        return c.getTime();
    }
}

Answer 3

Here's how you could improve it with the standard API:

public static String formatToYesterdayOrToday(String date) throws ParseException {
    Date dateTime = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE hh:mma MMM d, yyyy").parse(date);
    Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
    calendar.setTime(dateTime);
    Calendar today = Calendar.getInstance();
    Calendar yesterday = Calendar.getInstance();
    yesterday.add(Calendar.DATE, -1);
    DateFormat timeFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mma");

    if (calendar.get(Calendar.YEAR) == today.get(Calendar.YEAR) && calendar.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR) == today.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR)) {
        return "Today " + timeFormatter.format(dateTime);
    } else if (calendar.get(Calendar.YEAR) == yesterday.get(Calendar.YEAR) && calendar.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR) == yesterday.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR)) {
        return "Yesterday " + timeFormatter.format(dateTime);
    } else {
        return date;
    }
}

Here's how you could do it with Jodatime:

public static String formatToYesterdayOrToday(String date) {
    DateTime dateTime = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("EEE hh:mma MMM d, yyyy").parseDateTime(date);
    DateTime today = new DateTime();
    DateTime yesterday = today.minusDays(1);
    DateTimeFormatter timeFormatter = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("hh:mma");

    if (dateTime.toLocalDate().equals(today.toLocalDate())) {
        return "Today " + timeFormatter.print(dateTime);
    } else if (dateTime.toLocalDate().equals(yesterday.toLocalDate())) {
        return "Yesterday " + timeFormatter.print(dateTime);
    } else {
        return date;
    }
}