How can I determine if a date is between two dates

Question

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• Java: how do I check if a Date is within a certain range? 11 answers

How can I check if a date is between two other dates, in the case where all three dates are represented by instances of java.util.Date?

Answer 1

Like so:

Date min, max;   // assume these are set to something
Date d;          // the date in question

return d.compareTo(min) >= 0 && d.compareTo(max) <= 0;

You can use > instead of >= and < instead of <= to exclude the endpoints from the sense of "between."

Answer 2

Here's how to find whether today is between 2 months:

private boolean isTodayBetween(int from, int to) {
    if (from < 0 || to < 0 || from > Calendar.DECEMBER || to > Calendar.DECEMBER) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid month provided: from = " + from + " to = " + to);
    }
    Date now = new Date();
    GregorianCalendar cal = new GregorianCalendar();
    cal.setTime(now);
    int thisMonth = cal.get(Calendar.MONTH);
    if (from > to) {
        to = to + Calendar.DECEMBER;
        thisMonth = thisMonth + Calendar.DECEMBER;
    }
    if (thisMonth >= from && thisMonth <= to) {
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}

and call it like:

isTodayBetween(Calendar.OCTOBER, Calendar.MARCH)

Answer 3

Another option

min.getTime() <= d.getTime() && d.getTime() <= max.getTime()

Answer 4

you can use getTime() and compare the returned long UTC values.

EDIT if you are sure you'll not have to deal with dates before 1970, not sure how it will behave in that case.

Answer 5

This might be a bit more readable:

Date min, max;   // assume these are set to something
Date d;          // the date in question

return d.after(min) && d.before(max);

Answer 6

Here's a couple ways to do this using the Joda-Time 2.3 library.

One way is to use the simple isBefore and isAfter methods on DateTime instances. By the way, DateTime in Joda-Time is similar in concept to a java.util.Date (a moment in time on the timeline of the Universe) but includes a time zone.

Another way is to build an Interval in Joda-Time. The contains method tests if a given DateTime occurs within the span of time covered by the Interval. The beginning of the Interval is inclusive, but the endpoint is exclusive. This approach is known as "Half-Open", symbolically [).

See both ways in the following code example.

Convert the java.util.Date instances to Joda-Time DateTime instances. Simply pass the Date instance to constructor of DateTime. In practice you should also pass a specific DateTimeZone object rather than rely on JVM’s default time zone.

DateTime dateTime1 = new DateTime( new java.util.Date() ).minusWeeks( 1 );
DateTime dateTime2 = new DateTime( new java.util.Date() );
DateTime dateTime3 = new DateTime( new java.util.Date() ).plusWeeks( 1 );

Compare by testing for before/after…

boolean is1After2 = dateTime1.isAfter( dateTime2 );
boolean is2Before3 = dateTime2.isBefore( dateTime3 );

boolean is2Between1And3 = ( ( dateTime2.isAfter( dateTime1 ) ) && ( dateTime2.isBefore( dateTime3 ) ) );

Using the Interval approach instead of isAfter/isBefore…

Interval interval = new Interval( dateTime1, dateTime3 );
boolean intervalContainsDateTime2 = interval.contains( dateTime2 );

Dump to console…

System.out.println( "DateTimes: " + dateTime1 + " " + dateTime1 + " " + dateTime1 );
System.out.println( "is1After2 " + is1After2 );
System.out.println( "is2Before3 " + is2Before3 );
System.out.println( "is2Between1And3 " + is2Between1And3 );
System.out.println( "intervalContainsDateTime2 " + intervalContainsDateTime2 );

When run…

DateTimes: 2014-01-22T20:26:14.955-08:00 2014-01-22T20:26:14.955-08:00 2014-01-22T20:26:14.955-08:00
is1After2 false
is2Before3 true
is2Between1And3 true
intervalContainsDateTime2 true