How to compare two dates along with time in java

Question

I have two Date objects with the below format.

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss"); String matchDateTime = sdf.parse("2014-01-16T10:25:00"); Date matchDateTime = null;  try {     matchDateTime = sdf.parse(newMatchDateTimeString); } catch (ParseException e) {     // TODO Auto-generated catch block     e.printStackTrace(); }  // get the current date Date currenthDateTime = null; DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss"); Date dt = new Date(); String currentDateTimeString = dateFormat.format(dt); Log.v("CCCCCurrent DDDate String is:", "" + currentDateTimeString);  try {                        currenthDateTime = sdf.parse(currentDateTimeString); } catch (ParseException e) {     // TODO Auto-generated catch block      e.printStackTrace(); } 

Now I want to compare the above two dates along with time. How should I compare in Java.

Thanks

Answer 1

Since Date implements Comparable<Date>, it is as easy as:

date1.compareTo(date2); 

As the Comparable contract stipulates, it will return a negative integer/zero/positive integer if date1 is considered less than/the same as/greater than date2 respectively (ie, before/same/after in this case).

Note that Date has also .after() and .before() methods which will return booleans instead.