Question

public class CalendarCal {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Date date = new Date();
        SimpleDateFormat simpleDateformat = new SimpleDateFormat("yy");
        String m = simpleDateformat.format(date);
        System.out.println("Year:" + m);
        int year = Calendar.getInstance().get(Calendar.YEAR) % 100;
        System.err.println(year);
    }
}

I am able to retrieve the current year from this. How can I get the last (previous) year with help of utility? I don’t want to do a calculation like currentyear - 1 or like that.

Answer 1

Just use Calendar.add method to “add” -1 to the year and wrap it in your own utility method:

private static int getPreviousYear() {
    Calendar prevYear = Calendar.getInstance();
    prevYear.add(Calendar.YEAR, -1);
    return prevYear.get(Calendar.YEAR);
}

---

Example:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println(getPreviousYear());
}

Prints on my system:

2011