Best way to compare dates in Android

Question

Your code could be reduced to

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
Date strDate = sdf.parse(valid_until);
if (new Date().after(strDate)) {
    catalog_outdated = 1;
}

or

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
Date strDate = sdf.parse(valid_until);
if (System.currentTimeMillis() > strDate.getTime()) {
    catalog_outdated = 1;
}

You can use compareTo()

CompareTo method must return negative number if current object is less than other object, positive number if current object is greater than other object and zero if both objects are equal to each other.

// Get Current Date Time
Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm aa");
String getCurrentDateTime = sdf.format(c.getTime());
String getMyTime="05/19/2016 09:45 PM ";
Log.d("getCurrentDateTime",getCurrentDateTime); 
// getCurrentDateTime: 05/23/2016 18:49 PM

if (getCurrentDateTime.compareTo(getMyTime) < 0)
{

}
else
{
 Log.d("Return","getMyTime older than getCurrentDateTime "); 
}

You can directly create a Calendar from a Date:

Calendar validDate = new GregorianCalendar();
validDate.setTime(strDate);
if (Calendar.getInstance().after(validDate)) {
    catalog_outdated = 1;
}

Note that the right format is ("dd/MM/yyyy") before the code works. "mm" means minuts !

String valid_until = "01/07/2013";
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
Date strDate = null;
try {
    strDate = sdf.parse(valid_until);
} catch (ParseException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}
if (new Date().after(strDate)) {
    catalog_outdated = 1;
}

Calendar toDayCalendar = Calendar.getInstance();
Date date1 = toDayCalendar.getTime();


Calendar tomorrowCalendar = Calendar.getInstance();
tomorrowCalendar.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH,1);
Date date2 = tomorrowCalendar.getTime();

// date1 is a present date and date2 is tomorrow date

if ( date1.compareTo(date2) < 0 ) {

  //  0 comes when two date are same,
  //  1 comes when date1 is higher then date2
  // -1 comes when date1 is lower then date2

 }