Could someone please advise the current "best practice" around Date
and Calendar
types.
When writing new code, is it best to always favour Calendar
over Date
, or are there circumstances where Date
is the more appropriate datatype?
calendardatejava
Could someone please advise the current "best practice" around Date
and Calendar
types.
When writing new code, is it best to always favour Calendar
over Date
, or are there circumstances where Date
is the more appropriate datatype?
Best Answer
Date is a simpler class and is mainly there for backward compatibility reasons. If you need to set particular dates or do date arithmetic, use a Calendar. Calendars also handle localization. The previous date manipulation functions of Date have since been deprecated.
Personally I tend to use either time in milliseconds as a long (or Long, as appropriate) or Calendar when there is a choice.
Both Date and Calendar are mutable, which tends to present issues when using either in an API.