Question

I just stumbled accross this method

public static Date getNowDate() {
    final Calendar cal = new GregorianCalendar();
    cal.setTime(new Date());
    return cal.getTime();
}

which gets called like this:

getNowDate().getTime()

Is this any different from just calling

System.currentTimeMillis()

?

Answer 1

They are all much the same except for performance.

System.currentTimeMillis() is a system call so it takes around 0.1 to 0.3 micro-seconds (depending on your OS)

new Date() also creates an object, which takes only about 0.1 to 0.3 micro-seconds more but creates a little garbage.

Calendar.getInstance() creates an expensive set of objects and takes about 33 micro-seconds more.