Job Ready Java

Lesson 33Manipulating Dates and Times

The Java Date-Time API is a big API with a large number of features. In this lesson we will introduce the Date-Time API and show what is needed to get started.

The version of the Date-Time API that we cover in this lesson was introduced in Java 8 and addresses many shortcomings of what was available prior to that version for the date-time classes. The problems with the previous API led to the rise of several third-party Date-Time API implementations. The newer Java API incorporates features of these third-party APIs.

NOTE

The Date-Time API is just like any other API in that it consists of several different packages and classes, all of which have Javadocs explaining how they are to be used. We encourage you to explore the API and grab additional features as you need them.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

• Use the correct ISO calendar standard
• Differentiate between human time and machine time
• Differentiate between local and zone classes
• Differentiate between periods and duration
• Create LocalDates
• Calculate dates in the future and the past
• Calculate the time between two dates
• Format dates
• Convert the Date and GregorianCalendar objects

ISO CALENDAR

The Java Date-Time API uses standard 8601 from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 8601) for representing dates and times. ISO 8601 is meant to normalize the differences in date/time formats across the globe and is based on the ...