你需要更清楚地定义你的问题。您可以只取两个Date对象之间的毫秒数，然后除以24小时内的毫秒数，例如……但是:

这将不考虑时区-日期总是UTC 这并没有考虑到日光节约时间(例如，有些日子可能只有23小时) 即使在UTC时间内，8月16日晚上11点到8月18日凌晨2点有多少天?只有27个小时，那意味着一天吗?还是应该是三天，因为它涵盖了三个日期?

简单的diff(不含lib)

/**
 * Get a diff between two dates
 * @param date1 the oldest date
 * @param date2 the newest date
 * @param timeUnit the unit in which you want the diff
 * @return the diff value, in the provided unit
 */
public static long getDateDiff(Date date1, Date date2, TimeUnit timeUnit) {
    long diffInMillies = date2.getTime() - date1.getTime();
    return timeUnit.convert(diffInMillies,TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
}

然后你可以调用:

getDateDiff(date1,date2,TimeUnit.MINUTES);

以分钟为单位获取两个日期的差值。

TimeUnit是java.util.concurrent。TimeUnit，一个从纳米到天的标准Java枚举。

人类可读的差异(不含lib)

public static Map<TimeUnit,Long> computeDiff(Date date1, Date date2) {

    long diffInMillies = date2.getTime() - date1.getTime();

    //create the list
    List<TimeUnit> units = new ArrayList<TimeUnit>(EnumSet.allOf(TimeUnit.class));
    Collections.reverse(units);

    //create the result map of TimeUnit and difference
    Map<TimeUnit,Long> result = new LinkedHashMap<TimeUnit,Long>();
    long milliesRest = diffInMillies;

    for ( TimeUnit unit : units ) {
        
        //calculate difference in millisecond 
        long diff = unit.convert(milliesRest,TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
        long diffInMilliesForUnit = unit.toMillis(diff);
        milliesRest = milliesRest - diffInMilliesForUnit;

        //put the result in the map
        result.put(unit,diff);
    }

    return result;
}

http://ideone.com/5dXeu6

输出类似Map:{DAYS=1, HOURS=3, MINUTES=46, SECONDS=40, MILLISECONDS=0, MICROSECONDS=0, NANOSECONDS=0}，单位是有序的。

您只需将该映射转换为用户友好的字符串。

警告

上面的代码段计算两个瞬间之间的简单差。它会在夏令时切换期间导致问题，就像这篇文章中解释的那样。这意味着如果你计算没有时间的日期之间的差异，你可能会少了一天/小时。

在我看来，日期的差异是主观的，尤其是在日子上。你可以:

计算经过24小时的时间:day+1 - day = 1 day = 24h 计算经过的时间，考虑到夏令时:天+1 -天= 1 = 24小时(但使用午夜时间和夏令时，它可以是0天和23小时) 计算日开关的数量，这意味着一天+1 1pm -一天11am = 1天，即使经过的时间只有2h(如果有夏令时则为1h:p)

我的答案是有效的，如果你的日期差异的定义天匹配第一种情况

与JodaTime

如果你正在使用JodaTime，你可以得到2个瞬间的差异(millies支持ReadableInstant)日期:

Interval interval = new Interval(oldInstant, new Instant());

但是你也可以得到本地日期/时间的差异:

// returns 4 because of the leap year of 366 days
new Period(LocalDate.now(), LocalDate.now().plusDays(365*5), PeriodType.years()).getYears() 

// this time it returns 5
new Period(LocalDate.now(), LocalDate.now().plusDays(365*5+1), PeriodType.years()).getYears() 

// And you can also use these static methods
Years.yearsBetween(LocalDate.now(), LocalDate.now().plusDays(365*5)).getYears()

这可能是最直接的方法了——也许是因为我已经用Java编写了一段时间了(它的日期和时间库确实很笨拙)，但对我来说，代码看起来“简单而漂亮”!

您是否对以毫秒为单位返回的结果感到满意，或者您的问题的一部分是希望以某种替代格式返回?

这是一个正确的Java 7解决方案，没有任何依赖。

public static int countDaysBetween(Date date1, Date date2) {

    Calendar c1 = removeTime(from(date1));
    Calendar c2 = removeTime(from(date2));

    if (c1.get(YEAR) == c2.get(YEAR)) {

        return Math.abs(c1.get(DAY_OF_YEAR) - c2.get(DAY_OF_YEAR)) + 1;
    }
    // ensure c1 <= c2
    if (c1.get(YEAR) > c2.get(YEAR)) {
        Calendar c = c1;
        c1 = c2;
        c2 = c;
    }
    int y1 = c1.get(YEAR);
    int y2 = c2.get(YEAR);
    int d1 = c1.get(DAY_OF_YEAR);
    int d2 = c2.get(DAY_OF_YEAR);

    return d2 + ((y2 - y1) * 365) - d1 + countLeapYearsBetween(y1, y2) + 1;
}

private static int countLeapYearsBetween(int y1, int y2) {

    if (y1 < 1 || y2 < 1) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("Year must be > 0.");
    }
    // ensure y1 <= y2
    if (y1 > y2) {
        int i = y1;
        y1 = y2;
        y2 = i;
    }

    int diff = 0;

    int firstDivisibleBy4 = y1;
    if (firstDivisibleBy4 % 4 != 0) {
        firstDivisibleBy4 += 4 - (y1 % 4);
    }
    diff = y2 - firstDivisibleBy4 - 1;
    int divisibleBy4 = diff < 0 ? 0 : diff / 4 + 1;

    int firstDivisibleBy100 = y1;
    if (firstDivisibleBy100 % 100 != 0) {
        firstDivisibleBy100 += 100 - (firstDivisibleBy100 % 100);
    }
    diff = y2 - firstDivisibleBy100 - 1;
    int divisibleBy100 = diff < 0 ? 0 : diff / 100 + 1;

    int firstDivisibleBy400 = y1;
    if (firstDivisibleBy400 % 400 != 0) {
        firstDivisibleBy400 += 400 - (y1 % 400);
    }
    diff = y2 - firstDivisibleBy400 - 1;
    int divisibleBy400 = diff < 0 ? 0 : diff / 400 + 1;

    return divisibleBy4 - divisibleBy100 + divisibleBy400;
}


public static Calendar from(Date date) {

    Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
    c.setTime(date);

    return c;
}


public static Calendar removeTime(Calendar c) {

    c.set(HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
    c.set(MINUTE, 0);
    c.set(SECOND, 0);
    c.set(MILLISECOND, 0);

    return c;
}

因为这个问题用Scala做了标记，

import scala.concurrent.duration._
val diff = (System.currentTimeMillis() - oldDate.getTime).milliseconds
val diffSeconds = diff.toSeconds
val diffMinutes = diff.toMinutes
val diffHours = diff.toHours
val diffDays = diff.toDays

int daysDiff = (date1.getTime() - date2.getTime()) / MILLIS_PER_DAY;