See Also: Calendar Members
Calendar is an abstract base class for converting between a Date object and a set of integer fields such as YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR, and so on. (A Date object represents a specific instant in time with millisecond precision. See Java.Util.Date for information about the Date class.)
Subclasses of Calendar interpret a Date according to the rules of a specific calendar system.
Like other locale-sensitive classes, Calendar provides a class method, getInstance, for getting a default instance of this class for general use. Calendar's getInstance method returns a calendar whose locale is based on system settings and whose time fields have been initialized with the current date and time:
java Example
Calendar rightNow = Calendar.getInstance()
A Calendar object can produce all the time field values needed to implement the date-time formatting for a particular language and calendar style (for example, Japanese-Gregorian, Japanese-Traditional). Calendar defines the range of values returned by certain fields, as well as their meaning. For example, the first month of the year has value MONTH == JANUARY for all calendars. Other values are defined by the concrete subclass, such as ERA and YEAR. See individual field documentation and subclass documentation for details.
When a Calendar is lenient, it accepts a wider range of field values than it produces. For example, a lenient GregorianCalendar interprets MONTH == JANUARY, DAY_OF_MONTH == 32 as February 1. A non-lenient GregorianCalendar throws an exception when given out-of-range field settings. When calendars recompute field values for return by get(), they normalize them. For example, a GregorianCalendar always produces DAY_OF_MONTH values between 1 and the length of the month.
Calendar defines a locale-specific seven day week using two parameters: the first day of the week and the minimal days in first week (from 1 to 7). These numbers are taken from the locale resource data when a Calendar is constructed. They may also be specified explicitly through the API.
When setting or getting the WEEK_OF_MONTH or WEEK_OF_YEAR fields, Calendar must determine the first week of the month or year as a reference point. The first week of a month or year is defined as the earliest seven day period beginning on getFirstDayOfWeek() and containing at least getMinimalDaysInFirstWeek() days of that month or year. Weeks numbered ..., -1, 0 precede the first week; weeks numbered 2, 3,... follow it. Note that the normalized numbering returned by get() may be different. For example, a specific Calendar subclass may designate the week before week 1 of a year as week n of the previous year.
When computing a Date from time fields, two special circumstances may arise: there may be insufficient information to compute the Date (such as only year and month but no day in the month), or there may be inconsistent information (such as "Tuesday, July 15, 1996" -- July 15, 1996 is actually a Monday).
Insufficient information. The calendar will use default information to specify the missing fields. This may vary by calendar; for the Gregorian calendar, the default for a field is the same as that of the start of the epoch: i.e., YEAR = 1970, MONTH = JANUARY, DATE = 1, etc.
Inconsistent information. If fields conflict, the calendar will give preference to fields set more recently. For example, when determining the day, the calendar will look for one of the following combinations of fields. The most recent combination, as determined by the most recently set single field, will be used.
For the time of day:java Example
MONTH + DAY_OF_MONTH MONTH + WEEK_OF_MONTH + DAY_OF_WEEK MONTH + DAY_OF_WEEK_IN_MONTH + DAY_OF_WEEK DAY_OF_YEAR DAY_OF_WEEK + WEEK_OF_YEAR
java Example
HOUR_OF_DAY AM_PM + HOUR
Note: There are certain possible ambiguities in interpretation of certain singular times, which are resolved in the following ways:
The date or time format strings are not part of the definition of a calendar, as those must be modifiable or overridable by the user at runtime. Use Java.Text.DateFormat to format dates.
Field manipulation methods
Calendar fields can be changed using three methods: set(), add(), and roll().
set(f, value) changes field f to value. In addition, it sets an internal member variable to indicate that field f has been changed. Although field f is changed immediately, the calendar's milliseconds is not recomputed until the next call to get(), getTime(), or getTimeInMillis() is made. Thus, multiple calls to set() do not trigger multiple, unnecessary computations. As a result of changing a field using set(), other fields may also change, depending on the field, the field value, and the calendar system. In addition, get(f) will not necessarily return value after the fields have been recomputed. The specifics are determined by the concrete calendar class.
Example: Consider a GregorianCalendar originally set to August 31, 1999. Calling set(Calendar.MONTH, Calendar.SEPTEMBER) sets the calendar to September 31, 1999. This is a temporary internal representation that resolves to October 1, 1999 if getTime()is then called. However, a call to set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 30) before the call to getTime() sets the calendar to September 30, 1999, since no recomputation occurs after set() itself.
add(f, delta) adds delta to field f. This is equivalent to calling set(f, get(f) + delta) with two adjustments:
Add rule 1. The value of field f after the call minus the value of field f before the call is delta, modulo any overflow that has occurred in field f. Overflow occurs when a field value exceeds its range and, as a result, the next larger field is incremented or decremented and the field value is adjusted back into its range. Add rule 2. If a smaller field is expected to be invariant, but it is impossible for it to be equal to its prior value because of changes in its minimum or maximum after field f is changed, then its value is adjusted to be as close as possible to its expected value. A smaller field represents a smaller unit of time. HOUR is a smaller field than DAY_OF_MONTH. No adjustment is made to smaller fields that are not expected to be invariant. The calendar system determines what fields are expected to be invariant.
In addition, unlike set(), add() forces an immediate recomputation of the calendar's milliseconds and all fields.
Example: Consider a GregorianCalendar originally set to August 31, 1999. Calling add(Calendar.MONTH, 13) sets the calendar to September 30, 2000. Add rule 1 sets the MONTH field to September, since adding 13 months to August gives September of the next year. Since DAY_OF_MONTH cannot be 31 in September in a GregorianCalendar, add rule 2 sets the DAY_OF_MONTH to 30, the closest possible value. Although it is a smaller field, DAY_OF_WEEK is not adjusted by rule 2, since it is expected to change when the month changes in a GregorianCalendar.
roll(f, delta) adds delta to field f without changing larger fields. This is equivalent to calling add(f, delta) with the following adjustment:
Roll rule. Larger fields are unchanged after the call. A larger field represents a larger unit of time. DAY_OF_MONTH is a larger field than HOUR.
Example: Consider a GregorianCalendar originally set to August 31, 1999. Calling roll(Calendar.MONTH, 8) sets the calendar to April 30, 1999. Add rule 1 sets the MONTH field to April. Using a GregorianCalendar, the DAY_OF_MONTH cannot be 31 in the month April. Add rule 2 sets it to the closest possible value, 30. Finally, the roll rule maintains the YEAR field value of 1999.
Example: Consider a GregorianCalendar originally set to Sunday June 6, 1999. Calling roll(Calendar.WEEK_OF_MONTH, -1) sets the calendar to Tuesday June 1, 1999, whereas calling add(Calendar.WEEK_OF_MONTH, -1) sets the calendar to Sunday May 30, 1999. This is because the roll rule imposes an additional constraint: The MONTH must not change when the WEEK_OF_MONTH is rolled. Taken together with add rule 1, the resultant date must be between Tuesday June 1 and Saturday June 5. According to add rule 2, the DAY_OF_WEEK, an invariant when changing the WEEK_OF_MONTH, is set to Tuesday, the closest possible value to Sunday (where Sunday is the first day of the week).
Usage model. To motivate the behavior of add() and roll(), consider a user interface component with increment and decrement buttons for the month, day, and year, and an underlying GregorianCalendar. If the interface reads January 31, 1999 and the user presses the month increment button, what should it read? If the underlying implementation uses set(), it might read March 3, 1999. A better result would be February 28, 1999. Furthermore, if the user presses the month increment button again, it should read March 31, 1999, not March 28, 1999. By saving the original date and using either add() or roll(), depending on whether larger fields should be affected, the user interface can behave as most users will intuitively expect.
Note: You should always use roll and add rather than attempting to perform arithmetic operations directly on the fields of a Calendar. It is quite possible for Calendar subclasses to have fields with non-linear behavior, for example missing months or days during non-leap years. The subclasses' add and roll methods will take this into account, while simple arithmetic manipulations may give invalid results.