Get current date and time in java

This article will explain 7 different ways to get current date and time in java including the classes introduced in java 8.
Below is the list of methods covered.

Method 1: Using LocalDate
Java 8 introduced LocalDate class in java.time package, which simplifies getting current date.
It has a static now() method which returns the current date. Example,

LocalDate currentDate = LocalDate.now();
System.out.println(currentDate); // 2022-07-02

now() returns the date in yyyy-MM-dd format by default.
This can be changed using DateTimeFormatter as shown below

LocalDate currentDate = LocalDate.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.
                                    ofPattern("dd-MM-yyyy");
System.out.println(formatter.format(currentDate)); // 02-07-2022

Method 2: Using LocalDateTime
This is another class added in java 8, which represents date and time instances without a time zone.
LocalDateTime also has a now() method, which returns the current date and time.

LocalDateTime currentDateTime = LocalDateTime.now();
System.out.println(currentDateTime); 
// 2022-07-02T12:59:24.637521100

now() returns the current date and time in yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ss.S format.
Here, ‘T’ is a separator between date and time.

Default format can be customized with DateTimeFormatter as shown below

LocalDateTime currentDateTime = LocalDateTime.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.
                                    ofPattern("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
System.out.println(formatter.format(currentDateTime)); // 02/07/2022 12:59:24

Method 3: Using LocalTime
LocalTime in java 8 represents a time without time zone.
Its now() method returns the current time on the system on which it is executed.

LocalTime currentTime = LocalTime.now();
System.out.println(currentTime); // 13:05:56.029012100

Default format of time returned by now() is HH:mm:ss.S, which can be customized using DateTimeFormatter.

LocalTime currentTime = LocalTime.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.
                                    ofPattern("HH:mm:ss");
System.out.println(formatter.format(currentTime)); // 13:05:56

Method 4: Using ZonedDateTime
ZonedDateTime represents a date and time along with time zone information.
Its now() method returns the current date and time in the time zone of the machine on which it is executed. Example,

ZonedDateTime currentTime = ZonedDateTime.now();
System.out.println(currentTime);
// 2022-07-02T14:05:21.282523100+05:30[Asia/Calcutta]

You can see now() returns the complete date, time and timezone along with its offset or difference from UTC time.

Default format is yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.S<offset>[Timezone]
This can be customized with DateTimeFormatter as shown below

ZonedDateTime currentTime = ZonedDateTime.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.
                                    ofPattern("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss");
System.out.println(formatter.format(currentTime)); 
// 02-07-2022 14:08:12

It is also possible to get timezone and offset information from ZonedDateTime as

ZonedDateTime currentTime = ZonedDateTime.now();
System.out.println("Timezone: " + currentTime.getZone());
System.out.println("Offset: " + currentTime.getOffset());

This prints

ZonedDateTime can also be used to convert date time from one timezone to another.
Below code can be used to convert date time to est/edt timezone.

ZonedDateTime currentTime = ZonedDateTime.now();
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.
                                    ofPattern("dd-MM-yyyy hh:mm:ss");
System.out.println(formatter.format(currentTime));
    
ZonedDateTime estTime = currentTime.withZoneSameInstant(
                                        ZoneId.of("America/New_York"));
System.out.println(formatter.format(estTime));

Output is

Method 5: Using Instant
Java 8 Instant class represents a moment or the current instant in UTC, which means that it is the current date and time.

To get the current date and time in your respective timezone, it should be converted as shown below

Instant utcTime = Instant.now();
System.out.println(utcTime);
ZonedDateTime currentTime = utcTime.atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault());
System.out.println(currentTime);

This outputs

As before, the format can be customized with DateTimeFormatter.

Method 6: Using Date
java.util.Date is a traditional class present since java 1.0 version.
Constructor of date creates its object holding current date, time and timezone information.

Date date = new Date();
System.out.println(date);

Output is

You can see that the value returned by date is very long. It can be customized using SimpleDateFormat as shown below

Date date = new Date();
SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
System.out.println(format.format(date)); // 02/07/2022 15:17:10

There is another way to create a date object using its overloaded constructor and passing it current system time as long value as shown below

Date date = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis());
SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
System.out.println(format.format(date));

Remember that the constructor new Date() internally invokes the constructor which takes a long value.

This is called constructor chaining.
Method 7: Using Calendar
java.util.Calendar is also a legacy class present since java 1.0 version.
To create an instance of Calendar, use its static getInstance() method.
Its getTime() method returns a Date, containing the current date and time information as shown below

Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
System.out.println(calendar.getTime());

getTime() internally calls the Date constructor passing it the current system time as a long value.

So, there were the 7 methods to get current date and time in java.
If you are working on java version 8 and above, then it is recommended to use java.time classes such as LocalDate, LocalDateTime, LocalTime, ZonedDateTime, Instant as discussed in earlier sections.

Hope the article was useful.