Java Date getTime() Method

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Description

The Java Date getTime() method returns how many milliseconds have passed since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT

Declaration

Following is the declaration for java.util.Date.getTime() method

public long getTime()

Parameters

NA

Return Value

This method returns how many milliseconds have passed since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT

Exception

NA

Getting Time Elapsed Since Given Date Example

The following example shows the usage of Java Date getTime() method. We're creating a date instance and using getTime() we've checked how much seconds have passed since Jan 1, 1970.

package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.util.Date;

public class DateDemo {
   public static void main(String[] args) {

      // create a date
      Date date = new Date(97, 1, 23);
      long diff = date.getTime();

      // print how many milliseconds have passed since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT
      System.out.println("If date is 23-01-1997, " + diff + " have passed.");
   }
}

Output

Let us compile and run the above program, this will produce the following result −

If date is 23-01-1997, 856648800000 seconds have passed.