Java Timestamp - Adding five minutes

Question

looking for some help with a bit of Java code i'm working on, i have the following code which prints out the date and time:

  Date dNow = new Date( ); // Instantiate a Date object   SimpleDateFormat ft = new SimpleDateFormat ("MMM d, yyyy k:mm:ss");  // Time at server 

Result: Mar 15, 2013 10:19:48

I'm creating a javascript counter to work from this number and countdown from 5 minutes. So i need to add 5 minues to the current date time in Java.

So, if the current date time is: Mar 15, 2013 10:19:48

I need to add 5 minutes to Java so that it prints out: Mar 15, 2013 10:24:48

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Instead of starting with

new Date() 

start with

new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() + TimeUnit.MINUTES.toMillis(5)) 

This will give you a Date instance that represents your required point in time. You don't need to change any other part of your code.

Answer 2

Ignoring Dates and focusing on the question.

My preference is to use java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit since it adds clarity to my code.

In Java,

long now = System.currentTimeMillis(); 

5 minutes from now using TimeUtil is:

long nowPlus5Minutes = now + TimeUnit.MINUTES.toMillis(5); 

Reference: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/concurrent/TimeUnit.html