Java – Get time in milliseconds using Date, Calendar and ZonedDateTime

In this tutorial we will see how to get current time or given time in milliseconds in Java.
There are three ways to get time in milliseconds in java.
1) Using public long getTime() method of Date class.
2) Using public long getTimeInMillis() method of Calendar class
3) Java 8 – ZonedDateTime.now().toInstant().toEpochMilli() returns current time in milliseconds.

1. Getting current time in Milliseconds

In this example, we are getting the current time and then using the methods getTime() and getTimeInMillis(), which returns the Date time and Calendar time in milliseconds respectively. There is a simple way of doing the same in Java 8 using ZonedDateTime, I have shown that as a third way of getting time in millis in the Program.

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;
import java.time.ZonedDateTime;
public class Example {
   public static void main(String[] args) 
   {
      //Getting the current date
      Date date = new Date();
      //This method returns the time in millis
      long timeMilli = date.getTime();
      System.out.println("Time in milliseconds using Date class: " + timeMilli);

      //creating Calendar instance
      Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
      //Returns current time in millis
      long timeMilli2 = calendar.getTimeInMillis();
      System.out.println("Time in milliseconds using Calendar: " + timeMilli2);
      
      //Java 8 - toEpochMilli() method of ZonedDateTime
      System.out.println("Getting time in milliseconds in Java 8: " + 
      ZonedDateTime.now().toInstant().toEpochMilli());
   }
}

Output:

Time in milliseconds using Date class: 1508484583259
Time in milliseconds using Calendar: 1508484583267
Getting time in milliseconds in Java 8: 1508484583331

2. Get Time in Milliseconds for the Given date and time

In this example, we have given a date and time and we are displaying the given time in Milliseconds.

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;
public class Example {
   public static void main(String[] args) 
   {
	//Specifying the pattern of input date and time
	SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-M-yyyy hh:mm:ss");
	String dateString = "22-03-2017 11:18:32";
	try{
           //formatting the dateString to convert it into a Date 
	   Date date = sdf.parse(dateString);
	   System.out.println("Given Time in milliseconds : "+date.getTime());

	   Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
	   //Setting the Calendar date and time to the given date and time
	   calendar.setTime(date);
	   System.out.println("Given Time in milliseconds : "+calendar.getTimeInMillis());
	}catch(ParseException e){
	   e.printStackTrace();
	 } 
   }
}

Output:

Given Time in milliseconds : 1490161712000
Given Time in milliseconds : 1490161712000

References:

• Date JavaDoc
• Calendar JavaDoc

Related Posts:

1. Java 8 – How to get current date and time
2. Java Date – Convert time in 12 hour format to 24 hour format
3. Java – Display time in 12 hour format with AM/PM
4. Java – Format Date with TimeZone
5. Java – Check whether a date is valid or not