Android difference between two dates in seconds

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I've tried different methods around the web but couldn't make it work. 

Cursor cursor = sqlite.myDataBase.rawQuery("SELECT StartDate, EndDate FROM Tracks Where Id="+'"'+trackId+'"',null);

SimpleDateFormat outputFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
Date startDate = outputFormat.parse(cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("StartDate")));
Date endDate = outputFormat.parse(cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("EndDate")));

In this way I get both dates in good format. Now I want to find the difference between EndDate and Startdate in seconds.

Any advice? Thank you.

seconds date android
4 Answers

While the other answers work and were fine answers in 2010, I am providing the modern answer.

java.time and ThreeTenABP

    DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("uuuu-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
    ZoneId zone = ZoneId.systemDefault();

    String startDateString = "2019-12-31 23:34:45";
    String endDateString = "2020-01-01 07:56:34";

    ZonedDateTime start = LocalDateTime.parse(startDateString, formatter).atZone(zone);
    ZonedDateTime end = LocalDateTime.parse(endDateString, formatter).atZone(zone);

    long diffSeconds = ChronoUnit.SECONDS.between(start, end);

    System.out.println("Difference: " + diffSeconds + " seconds");

In most time zones output from this snippet will be:

Difference: 30109 seconds

I am using ZonedDateTime because it takes transitions to and from summer time (DST) and other time anomalies into account. It requires that you use the correct time zone, of course. If the time zone setting of your device is changed since you stored the dates and times into your database, you risk some surprises. To prevent such, you may store a UTC offset along with your times and then parse them into OffsetDateTime on retrieval.

Question: Doesn’t java.time require Android API level 26?

java.time works nicely on both older and newer Android devices. It just requires at least Java 6.

  • In Java 8 and later and on newer Android devices (from API level 26) the modern API comes built-in.
  • In non-Android Java 6 and 7 get the ThreeTen Backport, the backport of the modern classes (ThreeTen for JSR 310; see the links at the bottom).
  • On (older) Android use the Android edition of ThreeTen Backport. It’s called ThreeTenABP. And make sure you import the date and time classes from org.threeten.bp with subpackages.

Links

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