Question

I know there are a lot os posts about how to get the current time in java. But im planning to code a getAge Method in a Persona class. The problem is, I need to get the current time each time method is called. Let’s say a billion clients execute getMethod(with miliseconds, perhaps seconds of difference), a billion of objects will be created for such a simple thing. The only thing I did was create a member static in Person, so Person will share the instace. But this doesnt prevent the object creation.

public class Person{
//Some Attributes
private static Calendar now;
private Calendar birthDate;

public short getAge(){
now = Calendar.getInstance();

return  (short) (( now.getTimeInMillis() - birthDate.getTimeInMillis())/ 31536000000L;
}}

If you know some library that have this implemented without the waste of such heap size. Please tell me.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can also create a Calendar instance once and keep calling:

calendar.setTimeInMillis ( System.currentTimeMillis() );

to set the current time in calendar instance and use that calendar object to do any date calculation.