我喜欢基于timeunit的方法，直到我发现它只覆盖了一个时间单元在下一个更高单位中有多少个单位是固定的这种微不足道的情况。当你想知道间隔了多少个月、多少年等时，这个问题就不成立了。

这里有一种计数方法，不像其他方法那么有效，但它似乎对我有用，而且还考虑到了夏令时。

public static String getOffsetAsString( Calendar cNow, Calendar cThen) {
    Calendar cBefore;
    Calendar cAfter;
    if ( cNow.getTimeInMillis() < cThen.getTimeInMillis()) {
        cBefore = ( Calendar) cNow.clone();
        cAfter = cThen;
    } else {
        cBefore = ( Calendar) cThen.clone();
        cAfter = cNow;
    }
    // compute diff
    Map<Integer, Long> diffMap = new HashMap<Integer, Long>();
    int[] calFields = { Calendar.YEAR, Calendar.MONTH, Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, Calendar.MINUTE, Calendar.SECOND, Calendar.MILLISECOND};
    for ( int i = 0; i < calFields.length; i++) {
        int field = calFields[ i];
        long    d = computeDist( cAfter, cBefore, field);
        diffMap.put( field, d);
    }
    final String result = String.format( "%dY %02dM %dT %02d:%02d:%02d.%03d",
            diffMap.get( Calendar.YEAR), diffMap.get( Calendar.MONTH), diffMap.get( Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH), diffMap.get( Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY), diffMap.get( Calendar.MINUTE), diffMap.get( Calendar.SECOND), diffMap.get( Calendar.MILLISECOND));
    return result;
}

private static int computeDist( Calendar cAfter, Calendar cBefore, int field) {
    cBefore.setLenient( true);
    System.out.print( "D " + new Date( cBefore.getTimeInMillis()) + " --- " + new Date( cAfter.getTimeInMillis()) + ": ");
    int count = 0;
    if ( cAfter.getTimeInMillis() > cBefore.getTimeInMillis()) {
        int fVal = cBefore.get( field);
        while ( cAfter.getTimeInMillis() >= cBefore.getTimeInMillis()) {
            count++;
            fVal = cBefore.get( field);
            cBefore.set( field, fVal + 1);
            System.out.print( count + "/"  + ( fVal + 1) + ": " + new Date( cBefore.getTimeInMillis()) + " ] ");
        }
        int result = count - 1;
        cBefore.set( field, fVal);
        System.out.println( "" + result + " at: " + field + " cb = " + new Date( cBefore.getTimeInMillis()));
        return result;
    }
    return 0;
}

由于这里所有的答案都是正确的，但使用传统java或第三方库，如joda或类似的，我将放弃使用新java的另一种方式。Java 8及以后版本中的时间类。参见Oracle教程。

使用LocalDate和ChronoUnit:

LocalDate d1 = LocalDate.of(2017, 5, 1);
LocalDate d2 = LocalDate.of(2017, 5, 18);

long days = ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(d1, d2);
System.out.println( days );

不使用标准API，不行。你可以这样做:

class Duration {
    private final TimeUnit unit;
    private final long length;
    // ...
}

或者你可以使用Joda:

DateTime a = ..., b = ...;
Duration d = new Duration(a, b);

让我来看看Joda Interval和Days之间的差异:

DateTime start = new DateTime(2012, 2, 6, 10, 44, 51, 0);
DateTime end = new DateTime(2012, 2, 6, 11, 39, 47, 1);
Interval interval = new Interval(start, end);
Period period = interval.toPeriod();
System.out.println(period.getYears() + " years, " + period.getMonths() + " months, " + period.getWeeks() + " weeks, " + period.getDays() + " days");
System.out.println(period.getHours() + " hours, " + period.getMinutes() + " minutes, " + period.getSeconds() + " seconds ");
//Result is:
//0 years, 0 months, *1 weeks, 1 days*
//0 hours, 54 minutes, 56 seconds 

//Period can set PeriodType,such as PeriodType.yearMonthDay(),PeriodType.yearDayTime()...
Period p = new Period(start, end, PeriodType.yearMonthDayTime());
System.out.println(p.getYears() + " years, " + p.getMonths() + " months, " + p.getWeeks() + " weeks, " + p.getDays() + "days");
System.out.println(p.getHours() + " hours, " + p.getMinutes() + " minutes, " + p.getSeconds() + " seconds ");
//Result is:
//0 years, 0 months, *0 weeks, 8 days*
//0 hours, 54 minutes, 56 seconds 

不幸的是，JDK Date API被严重破坏了。我推荐使用Joda Time库。

Joda Time有一个时间间隔的概念:

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

编辑:顺便说一下，Joda有两个概念:Interval表示两个时间瞬间之间的时间间隔(表示上午8点到上午10点之间的时间)，Duration表示没有实际时间边界的时间长度(例如表示两个小时!)

如果你只关心时间比较，大多数Date实现(包括JDK)实现了Comparable接口，允许你使用Comparable. compareto ()

另一个纯Java变体:

public boolean isWithin30Days(Calendar queryCalendar) {

    // 1. Take the date you are checking, and roll it back N days
    Calendar queryCalMinus30Days = Calendar.getInstance();
    queryCalMinus30Days.setTime(queryCalendar.getTime());
    queryCalMinus30Days.add(Calendar.DATE, -30); // subtract 30 days from the calendar

    // 2. Get respective milliseconds for the two Calendars: now & queryCal minus N days 
    long nowL = Calendar.getInstance().getTimeInMillis();
    long queryCalMinus30DaysL = queryCalMinus30Days.getTimeInMillis();

    // 3. if nowL is still less than the queryCalMinus30DaysL, it means queryCalendar is more than 30 days into future
    boolean isWithin30Days = nowL >= queryCalMinus30DaysL;

    return isWithin30Days;
}

感谢这里的入门代码:https://stackoverflow.com/a/30207726/2162226