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Why is subtracting these two epoch-milli Times (in year 1927) giving a strange result?

Asked 2011-07-27T08:15:58.380
7616

If I run the following program, which parses two date strings referencing times 1 second apart and compares them:

public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
    SimpleDateFormat sf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");  
    String str3 = "1927-12-31 23:54:07";  
    String str4 = "1927-12-31 23:54:08";  
    Date sDt3 = sf.parse(str3);  
    Date sDt4 = sf.parse(str4);  
    long ld3 = sDt3.getTime() /1000;  
    long ld4 = sDt4.getTime() /1000;
    System.out.println(ld4-ld3);
}

The output is:

353

Why is ld4-ld3, not 1 (as I would expect from the one-second difference in the times), but 353?

If I change the dates to times 1 second later:

String str3 = "1927-12-31 23:54:08";  
String str4 = "1927-12-31 23:54:09";

Then ld4-ld3 will be 1.

Java version:

java version "1.6.0_22"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_22-b04)
Dynamic Code Evolution Client VM (build 0.2-b02-internal, 19.0-b04-internal, mixed mode)

Timezone(`TimeZone.getDefault()`):

sun.util.calendar.ZoneInfo[id="Asia/Shanghai",
offset=28800000,dstSavings=0,
useDaylight=false,
transitions=19,
lastRule=null]

Locale(Locale.getDefault()): zh_CN
java date timezone
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2 Answers

423

When incrementing time you should convert back to UTC and then add or subtract. Use the local time only for display.

This way you will be able to walk through any periods where hours or minutes happen twice.

If you converted to UTC, add each second, and convert to local time for display. You would go through 11:54:08 p.m. LMT - 11:59:59 p.m. LMT and then 11:54:08 p.m. CST - 11:59:59 p.m. CST.

answered 2011-07-30T16:55:04.487
352

Instead of converting each date, you can use the following code: 

long difference = (sDt4.getTime() - sDt3.getTime()) / 1000;
System.out.println(difference);

And then see that the result is:

1
answered 2012-05-16T05:31:55.867

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