How can I find the number of years between two dates?

Question

I am trying to determine an age in years from a certain date. Does anyone know a clean way to do this in Android? I have the Java api available obviously, but the straight-up java api is pretty weak, and I was hoping that Android has something to help me out.

EDIT: The multiple recommendations to use Joda time in Android worries me a bit due to Android Java - Joda Date is slow and related concerns. Also, pulling in a library not shipped with the platform for something this size is probably overkill.

Answer 1

import java.util.Calendar; import java.util.Locale; import static java.util.Calendar.*; import java.util.Date;  public static int getDiffYears(Date first, Date last) {     Calendar a = getCalendar(first);     Calendar b = getCalendar(last);     int diff = b.get(YEAR) - a.get(YEAR);     if (a.get(MONTH) > b.get(MONTH) ||          (a.get(MONTH) == b.get(MONTH) && a.get(DATE) > b.get(DATE))) {         diff--;     }     return diff; }  public static Calendar getCalendar(Date date) {     Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(Locale.US);     cal.setTime(date);     return cal; } 

Note: as Ole V.V. noticed, this won't work with dates before Christ due how Calendar works.