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Part 8 - Date - Time in Java 8

The existing Java date and time libraries (Date, Calendar) have issues like mutability, lack of timezone support, and poor usability. Java 8 introduced new date-time classes like LocalDate, LocalTime, and OffsetDateTime that are immutable, follow domain-driven design principles, and support multiple calendar systems. The new API addresses the issues with the old libraries and provides a more expressive and robust way to work with dates, times, durations, and periods in Java applications.

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81 views

Part 8 - Date - Time in Java 8

The existing Java date and time libraries (Date, Calendar) have issues like mutability, lack of timezone support, and poor usability. Java 8 introduced new date-time classes like LocalDate, LocalTime, and OffsetDateTime that are immutable, follow domain-driven design principles, and support multiple calendar systems. The new API addresses the issues with the old libraries and provides a more expressive and robust way to work with dates, times, durations, and periods in Java applications.

Uploaded by

zubes78
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Date & Time in Java 8

Richard Warburton
Raoul-Gabriel Urma
Outline

1. The problem with existing date time


libraries
2. The core classes LocalDate/LocalTime
3. Common API Patterns
4. Live Coding Example
The problem with existing date time libraries
Java Date

• In the language since January 23, 1996

• Mutability

• Date is an instant in time

• Additional classes for SQL required

• No Timezones
Calendar

• Still mutable

• Not thread safe

• Can’t format dates directly

• Arithmetic operations on dates tricky

• Heavyweight memory consumption


Highlighting the Problem

Date date = new Date(2007, 12, 13, 16, 40);

TimeZone zone =
TimeZone.getTimeZone("Asia/HongKong");

Calendar cal = new GregorianCalendar(date, zone);


DateFormat fm = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm Z");
String str = fm.format(cal);
Highlighting the Problem

Date date = new Date(2007, 12, 13, 16, 40);

TimeZone zone =
TimeZone.getTimeZone("Asia/Hong_Kong");

Calendar cal = new GregorianCalendar(date, zone);


DateFormat fm = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm Z");
String str = fm.format(cal);
Joda Time
• Popular Open Source API

• Challenged the core Java APIs

• Introduced new required concepts


New Concepts

• Instant
• Precise moment in time
• Milliseconds since epoch

• Duration
• Time in milliseconds between two points.
New Concepts

• Period
• A period of time defined in terms of
human readable fields, eg 1 Month

• Chronology
• A calculation engine supporting rules of a
specific calendar
Problems

• Nulls
• Joda Time treats nulls as zero
• Can lead to unexpected results from bugs
• Easy to miss a problem

• Pluggable Chronologies
• Powerful for multiple calendaring systems
• How do you know what you are using?
• How do you extend?
Problems

• Human/Machine Timeline
• Machine counts from 0
• Humans have logical dates

• Internal Implementation
• Could be improved

• Weak Typing
• Lots of constructors take Object
Quiz

What is the range of values returned by this


method in Joda Time?

int month = dateTime.getMonthOfYear();


Answer

It depends on the chronology set, mostly we


assume ISO.

//If chronology is ISO, month = 12


//If chronology is Coptic, month = 13
int month = dateTime.getMonthOfYear();
The core classes LocalDate/LocalTime
java.time classes
java.time overview

• java.time
• The core classes and most frequently used

• java.time.chrono
• Alternative calendaring systems

• java.time.format
• Formatting and parsing tools
java.time overview

• java.time.temporal
• Interfaces required for core classes

• java.time.zone
• Underlying time zone rules, not often used
Zone Id vs Offset

• java.time.ZoneId
• Identifier for a time zone
• CEST or Europe/Amsterdam
• Can resolve to an offset at a point in time

• java.time.ZoneOffset
• Duration of time away from UTC
• Many-to-many relationship with Ids
Duration vs Period

• Duration
• Time based distance on the timeline
• eg: 2 seconds + 3 nanoseconds

• Period
• Date based distance on the timeline
• eg: 3 weeks + 2 days

• NB: Getters return fields, don’t convert the


period/duration to that field
Common API Patterns
Design Goals

• Domain Driven Design

• Immutable implementations

• Limited set of calendaring systems, but


extendable to others using chronologies

• More expressive than Date/Calendar in


order to better model the problem domain
Domain Models

• Many developers currently simply use Date

• Date is more representative of an instant

• Strange impact with daylight saving

• Move towards idea of having classes to


represent each scenario
Immutability

• Once values are set they never change

• Mutability can have consequences in both


multi threaded and single threaded code

• Existing formatters are not thread safe

• Developers using dates as part of their API


can accidentally update values unexpectedly
Calendaring Systems

• API designed to meet what most developers


require from a calendaring system

• Also has support for other major calendaring


systems (provided in java.time.chrono)

• It is also possible to write your own


calendaring systems
ANSI SQL Types

DATE LocalDate
TIME LocalTime
TIMESTAMP LocalDateTime
TIME WITH OffsetTime
TIMEZONE
TIMESTAMP WITH OffsetDateTime
TIMEZONE
Live Coding: TripExample
Summary
Summary

• The existing Java classes exhibit poor usability


characteristics
• Java 8 introduces a new Date & Time API
• Immutable
• Domain Driven Design
• Supports different Calendaring Systems
Exercises

Run the test at:

com.java_8_training.problems.datetime.TestBirthdayDiary

You will need to modify the diary at:

BirthdayDiary

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