java.time in Java

From the Java cheat sheet · Date & Time · verified Jul 2026

java.time

Dates, times, instants, durations, and formatting.

java

// Quick Reference
LocalDate today = LocalDate.now();
LocalDateTime dt = LocalDateTime.now();
today.plusDays(7);
today.format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd"));

💡 Use java.time (LocalDate, LocalDateTime) - the old Date and Calendar are legacy.

⚡ All java.time types are immutable; plusDays/minusHours return new instances.

📌 Duration measures time (hours/seconds); Period measures dates (years/months/days).

🟢 Instant is a UTC machine timestamp; LocalDateTime has no zone - pair it with ZoneId.

datetimejava-time

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