Adjusting Date and Time with javax.time

Java's JSR-310 date and time API, co-lead by Michael Nascimento Santos and Stephen Colebourne is a natural spinoff from the venerable joda time. The implementation has many advantages over java util's Date and Calendar. Compared to java.util.Date the API has many types of Date and Time including LocalDate, LocalTime, LocalDateTime, OffsetDate, OffsetTime, OffsetDateTime, and ZonedDateTime.

The new JSR-310 date, time, and date/time classes are immutable and thread safe, unlike java.util.Calendar, but at the same time they offer many basic math, adjusters, and matchers that enable date and time calculations missing in java.util.Date. They are created from a TimeSource that can be tied to the System clock, fixed, or offset in time. This makes the classes extremely test friendly.

This entry discusses how the basic date/time math work and how the date and time adjusters can be used to solve common problems. Lets look first at the basic math.

Look Ma, no Setters: The JSR-310 date/time classes are immutable and thread safe. To accomplish this, the API doesn't include any setXX methods. Days, Hours, Years, etc are manipulated through "plus", "minus", and "with" methods that return new objects of the same type. Here are a few examples, first with date then time:

// tomorrow and 5 years from now
clock = Clock.systemDefaultZone()
today = clock.today()
assert clock.tomorrow() == today.plusDays(1)
fiveYearsFromNow = today.plusYears( 5 )
assert today.plusMonths( 60 ).year == fiveYearsFromNow.year

// two hours ago
now = clock.timeToSecond()
twoHoursAgo = now.minusHours( 2 )
assert now.minusMinutes( 120 ) == twoHoursAgo

// use offset datetime to get today at noon
noon = clock.offsetDateTime().withTime( 12, 0, 0 )
assert noon.hourOfDay == 12
assert noon.minuteOfHour == 0
assert noon.secondOfMinute == 0

The Adjusters: Here is a tricky problem: how do you compute the specific date of a week numbered day of the month, for example the 3rd friday or 4th tuesday. Bay area residents know that not being able to calculate these simple problems can cost real money (street sweep adys). So here is how JSR-310 handles this:

dt = clock.offsetDate()

thirdFridayAdjuster = DateAdjusters.dayOfWeekInMonth( 3, DayOfWeek.FRIDAY )
fourthTuesdayAdjuster = DateAdjusters.dayOfWeekInMonth( 4, DayOfWeek.TUESDAY )

thirdFriday = dt.with( thirdFridayAdjuster )
println "third friday -> ${thirdFriday}, ${thirdFriday.toDayOfWeek()}, ${thirdFridayAdjuster}"
assert DayOfWeek.FRIDAY == thirdFriday.toDayOfWeek()

fourthTuesday = dt.with( fourthTuesdayAdjuster )
println "fourth tuesday -> ${fourthTuesday}, ${fourthTuesday.toDayOfWeek()}, ${fourthTuesdayAdjuster}"
assert DayOfWeek.TUESDAY == fourthTuesday.toDayOfWeek()

These examples just scratch the surface of the many date/time manipluation methods for JSR-310's javax.time package. The next entry will discuss how JSR-310 matchers help determine if a date lands on a leap year, leap day, last day of the month, etc. and how to use this in groovy.

JSR-310 javax.time and Groovy Tests

The development and implementation of JSR-310 is continuing to move ahead at a good pace. Once delivered, (hopefully by JDK 7) the java community will have a solid replacement for the outdated and comparatively buggy Date and Calendar classes. At the same time, I have created a series of groovy tests that exercise the JSR-310 capabilities.

Formal unit tests for JSR-310 are written in testng and cover all the low level details including TimeZone resolving, serialization, etc. My tests simply verify a subset of the current API and demonstrate use with groovy. The tests cover the basic API, adjusters, matchers, peroids, formatters and parsers. This post demonstrates the basic tests.

Basic API Tests: These tests take advantage of groovy's invokeMethod() to test methods that take zero or more parameters. They demonstrate typical use of TimeSource, Clock, LocalDate, and LocalTime classes. With these basics it's easy to extend to LocalDateTime, OffsetDate, OffsetTime, or ZonedDateTime. Here is the output trace generated from running BasicTests.groovy:

TimeSource to Date/Calendar conversion tests ---------------------------------------
Timesource.system().instant() -> {ts.instant()}
Clock Method Tests ----------------------------------------------------------------
clock = Clock.systemDefaultZone() -> TimeSourceClock[SystemTimeSource, America/Los_Angeles]
Clock methods...
method: clock.getSource() -> SystemTimeSource
method: clock.getZone() -> America/Los_Angeles
method: clock.today() -> 2009-02-21
method: clock.tomorrow() -> 2009-02-22
method: clock.yesterday() -> 2009-02-20
method: clock.dateTime() -> 2009-02-21T08:56:35.512
method: clock.dateTimeToMinute() -> 2009-02-21T08:56
method: clock.dateTimeToSecond() -> 2009-02-21T08:56:35
method: clock.time() -> 08:56:35.515
method: clock.timeToMinute() -> 08:56
method: clock.timeToSecond() -> 08:56:35
method: clock.offsetDate() -> 2009-02-21-08:00
method: clock.offsetTime() -> 08:56:35.517-08:00
method: clock.offsetTimeToMinute() -> 08:56-08:00
method: clock.offsetTimeToSecond() -> 08:56:35-08:00
method: clock.offsetDateTime() -> 2009-02-21T08:56:35.518-08:00
method: clock.zonedDateTime() -> 2009-02-21T08:56:35.521-08:00 America/Los_Angeles
method: clock.zonedDateTimeToMinute() -> 2009-02-21T08:56-08:00 America/Los_Angeles
method: clock.zonedDateTimeToSecond() -> 2009-02-21T08:56:35-08:00 America/Los_Angeles
method: clock.year() -> Year=2009
method: clock.yearMonth() -> 2009-02

OffsetDate methods from offsetDate = clock.offsetDate() -> 2009-02-21-08:00
method: offsetDate.atMidnight() -> 2009-02-21T00:00-08:00
method: offsetDate.getDayOfMonth() -> 21
method: offsetDate.getDayOfWeek() -> DayOfWeek=SATURDAY
method: offsetDate.getDayOfYear() -> 52
method: offsetDate.getMonthOfYear() -> MonthOfYear=FEBRUARY
method: offsetDate.getYear() -> 2009
method: offsetDate.toDayOfMonth() -> DayOfMonth=21
method: offsetDate.toDayOfWeek() -> DayOfWeek=SATURDAY
method: offsetDate.toDayOfYear() -> DayOfYear=52
method: offsetDate.toLocalDate() -> 2009-02-21
method: offsetDate.toMonthOfYear() -> MonthOfYear=FEBRUARY
method: offsetDate.toYear() -> Year=2009
method: offsetDate.getDate() -> 2009-02-21

LocalDate methods from localDate = LocalDate.date(2019, 03, 01) -> 2019-03-01
method: localDate.atMidnight() -> 2019-03-01T00:00
method: localDate.getDayOfMonth() -> 1
method: localDate.getDayOfWeek() -> DayOfWeek=FRIDAY
method: localDate.getDayOfYear() -> 60
method: localDate.getMonthOfYear() -> MonthOfYear=MARCH
method: localDate.getYear() -> 2019
method: localDate.toDayOfMonth() -> DayOfMonth=1
method: localDate.toDayOfWeek() -> DayOfWeek=FRIDAY
method: localDate.toDayOfYear() -> DayOfYear=60
method: localDate.toLocalDate() -> 2019-03-01
method: localDate.toMonthOfYear() -> MonthOfYear=MARCH
method: localDate.toYear() -> Year=2019
method: localDate.getMonthDay() -> --03-01
method: localDate.getYearMonth() -> 2019-03
method: localDate.isLeapYear() -> false
method: localDate.toEpochDays() -> 17956
method: localDate.toModifiedJulianDays() -> 58543
method: localDate.toDateTimeFields() -> {ISO.Year=2019, ISO.MonthOfYear=3, ISO.DayOfMonth=1}

LocalTime methods, from localTime = clock.time() -> 08:56:35.549
method: localTime.getHourOfDay() -> 8
method: localTime.getMinuteOfHour() -> 56
method: localTime.getSecondOfMinute() -> 35
method: localTime.toDateTimeFields() -> {ISO.HourOfDay=8, ISO.MinuteOfHour=56, ISO.SecondOfMinute=35, ISO.NanoOfSecond=549000000}
method: localTime.toHourOfDay() -> HourOfDay=8
method: localTime.toLocalTime() -> 08:56:35.549
method: localTime.toMinuteOfHour() -> MinuteOfHour=56
method: localTime.toSecondOfMinute() -> SecondOfMinute=35
method: localTime.getNanoOfSecond() -> 549000000
method: localTime.toNanoOfSecond() -> NanoOfSecond=549000000
method: localTime.toNanoOfDay() -> 32195549000000
End basic tests...

Close inspection reveals that some methods in LocalDate are missing in OffsetDate. This isn't a huge problem, because OffsetDate can easily create a LocalDate object. But, it would be nice to have isLeapYear(), toEpochDays(), toModifiedJulianDays() and other methods in both classes. (This may already be in the works)...

Here is a simple way to access some of the missing methods:

offsetDate = clock.offsetDate()
offsetDate.toLocalDate().toEpochDays()
offsetDate.toLocalDate().toModifiedJulianDays()
offsetDate.toLocalDate().isLeapYear()
// or, even groovyer
offsetDate.toLocalDate().leapYear

Conclusion: What these tests really do is to demonstrate the basic functionality of the new javax.time classes. It's obvious that JSR-310 offers the horsepower missing from the current java implementations. And, it will be a very useful addition to the groovy toolkit as well.

Future posts will demonstrate the Adjusters, Matchers, Periods, Formatters and Parsers. Once the tests are cleaned up a bit, I'll post them on line.