CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javacalendarjodatime
Jim
Jim

Reputation: 19582

Combine 2 dates with one format?

Is it possible to define a format that combines 2 dates?
E.g. assume I have date1 e.g. 15/1/2016 and date2. e.g. 20/1/2016 Is there any format that I could use to show something like:
15-20 Jan 2016 ?

Other example:
E.g. assume I have date1 e.g. 15/1/2016 and date2. e.g. 20/5/2016 Result: 15 Jan - 20 May 2016

Upvotes: 0

Views: 174

Answers (4)

Basil Bourque
Basil Bourque

Reputation: 339362

ISO 8601

The ISO 8601 standard defines formats for textual representations of various date-time values.

The standard way to represent a span of time is with the pair of dates formatted as YYYY-MM-DD, conjoined by a slash character.

2016-01-15/2016-05-20

LocalDate

Using the LocalDate class in the java.time framework built into Java 8 and later, with a pair of LocalDate objects named start and stop.

String output = start.toString() + "/" + stop.toString();

Upvotes: 0

Draken
Draken

Reputation: 3189

public String dateRangeToString(Date date1, Date date2){
    Calendar firstCal = Calendar.getInstance();
    firstCal.setTime(date1);
    Calendar secondCal = Calendar.getInstance();
    secondCal .setTime(date2);
    if (firstCal.getTimeInMillis() > secondCal.getTimeInMillis()){
        firstCal.setTime(date2);
        secondCal .setTime(date1);
    }
    String result;
    SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd MMMM yyyy");
    if (firstCal.get(Calendar.YEAR) < secondCal.get(Calendar.YEAR)){
        result = format.format(firstCal.getTime()) + " - "  + format.format(secondCal.getTime());
    }
    else if (firstCal.get(Calendar.MONTH) < secondCal.get(Calendar.MONTH)){
        SimpleDateFormat formatTemp = new SimpleDateFormat("dd MMMM");
        result = formatTemp .format(firstCal.getTime()) + " - "  + format.format(secondCal.getTime());
    }
    else if (firstCal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH) < secondCal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH)){
        SimpleDateFormat formatTemp = new SimpleDateFormat("dd");
        result = formatTemp .format(firstCal.getTime()) + " - " + format.format(secondCal.getTime());
    }
    else{//Both dates are equal
        result = format.format(firstCal.getTime());
    }
    return result;
}

That should work, not pretty, but since you can have so many variations, it should manage what you want.

To explain, it has to use an if statement to check what parts of the date are not equal, is it just the year, month or day? Depending on what part fails will dictate which string to output. I then use variations of the SimpleDateFormat to output the desired string

EDIT Using the following code:

    Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
    calendar.set(2013,5,29);
    Calendar calendar2 = Calendar.getInstance();
    calendar2.set(2012,4,30);
    System.out.println(dateRangeToString(calendar.getTime(), calendar2.getTime()));


    calendar.set(2013,5,29);
    calendar2.set(2013,4,30);
    System.out.println(dateRangeToString(calendar.getTime(), calendar2.getTime()));

    calendar.set(2013,5,29);
    calendar2.set(2013,5,30);
    System.out.println(dateRangeToString(calendar.getTime(), calendar2.getTime()));


    calendar.set(2013,5,30);
    calendar2.set(2013,5,30);
    System.out.println(dateRangeToString(calendar.getTime(), calendar2.getTime()));

I get the following results:

30 May 2012 - 29 June 2013

30 May - 29 June 2013

29 - 30 June 2013

30 June 2013

Upvotes: 0

Priyamal
Priyamal

Reputation: 2989

15-20 May 2016 - this is not a true date format . i dont think that there is any format to do this. but you can define your own method which will return an string and if you are using java 8 use localDate

LocalDate myDate = new LocalDate("2016-5-15");
LocalDate endDate =new LocalDate(2016-5-20);

String format = mydate.getDayOfMonth() 
+"-"+ endDate.getDayOfMonth() 
+" "+endDate.getMonth().toString()
+" "+endDate.getYear();

Upvotes: 1

Jesper
Jesper

Reputation: 206896

Here is one way to do this. Ofcourse this does not take into account that the dates may be in different months or years. It takes the month and year from startDate.

LocalDate startDate = LocalDate.of(2016, 5, 15);
LocalDate endDate = LocalDate.of(2016, 5, 20);

String text = String.format("%1$te-%2$te %1$tB %1$tY", startDate, endDate);

System.out.println(text);

See the documentation for how the format string works.

NOTE: This uses Java 8 java.time.LocalDate and not Joda Time.

Upvotes: 3

Related Questions