Dates before January 1st, 1970

Question

The getTime() fetches the time in millis for a certain Date. Can this be used reliably for dates say in the 18th century. We use the millis and store it in a string variable for future comparison. Is there a limit on how far in the past that this could be used?

score 15 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 14 '13 at 21:20

15

I would highly recommend you take a look at JodaTime if you are doing date/time comparisons of the distant past. Or actually any sort of date/time comparisons and calculations. It is a great library!

Don't rely on getTime() for what you want to do. At least consider using Java's Calendar/GregorianCalendar. But personally, I'd suggest using JodaTime.

edited Sep 14 '13 at 21:20

Martijn Courteaux

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answered Sep 14 '10 at 07:48

Tauren

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Calendar too uses the *Epoch, January 1, 1970 00:00:00.000 GMT* — so I wonder if a Calendar could handle my birthday. Let alone distant distant past. – Martin May 25 '12 at 07:24
use java.time (JSR-310) since Java 8 – Hartmut Pfarr Feb 08 '21 at 18:35

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 14 '10 at 07:50

12

Of course, long is signed and for example 1.1.1701 is -8 488 782 000 000.

answered Sep 14 '10 at 07:50

MarrLiss

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score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 31 '17 at 10:50

2

Returns the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT represented by this Date object

Better to go for Calendar OR Jodatime

edited Oct 31 '17 at 10:50

Vratislav Jindra

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answered Sep 14 '10 at 07:49

jmj

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Dates before January 1st, 1970

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