Question

Is it possible that i can get todays date , rather than time ??

This is my code

public static void main(String args[]) throws ParseException{   
    SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
    Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
    Date today = calendar.getTime();

}

Why is todays date is shown as before date ??

public class Ravi {

    public static void main(String args[]) throws ParseException {

        DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
        Date date = new Date();
        System.out.println("Todays Date"+dateFormat.format(date));


        List currentObject = new ArrayList();

        currentObject.add("2012-09-27");

        Date ExpDate = dateFormat.parse((String) currentObject.get(0));

        System.out.println("ddd"+ExpDate);

        if (ExpDate.before(date)) {
            System.out.println("true");
        }

        else {
            System.out.println("false");
        }

    }

}

Answer 1

Because Date is always the full current time e.g. 2012.09.27 12:45:23

Whilst your new Formated date is 2012.09.27 00:00:00 therefor the output is correct.

If you want to get false you will need to set hours, minutes and seconds to 0.

Using Calendar:

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd");
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
System.out.println(dateFormat.format(cal.getTime()));

Using Date:

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd");
Date date = new Date();
System.out.println(dateFormat.format(date));

Comparing Dates with Calendar:

Calendar old = Calendar.getInstance();

old.set(Calendar.YEAR, 2011);

Calendar now = Calendar.getInstance();

old.before(now));

Note you may want to set Hours Minutes and Seconds to 0.