我发现这段代码在计时时很有用:

public class Et {
    public Et() {
    reset();
    }
    public void reset() {
    t0=System.nanoTime();
    }
    public long t0() {
        return t0;
    }
    public long dt() {
        return System.nanoTime()-t0();
    }
    public double etms() {
    return etms(dt());
    }
    @Override public String toString() {
        return etms()+" ms.";
    }
    public static double etms(long dt) {
        return dt/1000000.; // 1_000_000. breaks cobertura
    }
    private Long t0;
}

不幸的是，目前发布的十个答案中没有一个是完全正确的。

如果您正在测量经过的时间，并且希望它是正确的，那么必须使用System.nanoTime()。您不能使用System.currentTimeMillis()，除非您不介意结果是错误的。

The purpose of nanoTime is to measure elapsed time, and the purpose of currentTimeMillis is to measure wall-clock time. You can't use the one for the other purpose. The reason is that no computer's clock is perfect; it always drifts and occasionally needs to be corrected. This correction might either happen manually, or in the case of most machines, there's a process that runs and continually issues small corrections to the system clock ("wall clock"). These tend to happen often. Another such correction happens whenever there is a leap second.

由于nanoTime的目的是测量经过的时间，因此它不受任何这些小修正的影响。它是你想要使用的。当前使用currentTimeMillis进行的任何计时都将关闭——甚至可能为负值。

您可能会说，“这听起来似乎并没有那么重要”，对此我说，也许不是，但总的来说，正确的代码不就是比错误的代码好吗?此外，nanoTime打字时间更短。

之前发布的关于nanoTime通常只有微秒精度的免责声明是有效的。此外，它可能需要超过一微秒的时间来调用，这取决于环境(另一个也是如此)，所以不要期望对非常非常小的间隔进行正确的计时。

Byte Stream Reader Elapsed Time for 23.7 MB is 96 secs

import java.io.*;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Scanner;

class ElaspedTimetoCopyAFileUsingByteStream
{

    private long startTime = 0;
    private long stopTime = 0;
    private boolean running = false;


    public void start() 
    {
        this.startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        this.running = true;
    }


    public void stop() 
    {
        this.stopTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        this.running = false;
    }



    public long getElapsedTime() 
    {
        long elapsed;
        if (running) {
             elapsed = (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime);
        }
        else {
            elapsed = (stopTime - startTime);
        }
        return elapsed;
    }



    public long getElapsedTimeSecs()                 
    {
        long elapsed;
        if (running) 
        {
            elapsed = ((System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) / 1000);
        }
        else
        {
            elapsed = ((stopTime - startTime) / 1000);
        }
        return elapsed;
    }





    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException
    {
        ElaspedTimetoCopyAFileUsingByteStream  s = new ElaspedTimetoCopyAFileUsingByteStream();
        s.start();

        FileInputStream in = null;
        FileOutputStream out = null;

      try {
         in = new FileInputStream("vowels.txt");   // 23.7  MB File
         out = new FileOutputStream("output.txt");

         int c;
         while ((c = in.read()) != -1) {
            out.write(c);
         }
      }finally {
         if (in != null) {
            in.close();
         }
         if (out != null) {
            out.close();
         }
      }



        s.stop();
        System.out.println("elapsed time in seconds: " + s.getElapsedTimeSecs());
    }
}

[Elapsed Time for Byte Stream Reader][1]

**Character Stream Reader Elapsed Time for 23.7 MB is 3 secs**

import java.io.*;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Scanner;

class ElaspedTimetoCopyAFileUsingCharacterStream
{

    private long startTime = 0;
    private long stopTime = 0;
    private boolean running = false;


    public void start() 
    {
        this.startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        this.running = true;
    }


    public void stop() 
    {
        this.stopTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        this.running = false;
    }



    public long getElapsedTime() 
    {
        long elapsed;
        if (running) {
             elapsed = (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime);
        }
        else {
            elapsed = (stopTime - startTime);
        }
        return elapsed;
    }



    public long getElapsedTimeSecs()                 
    {
        long elapsed;
        if (running) 
        {
            elapsed = ((System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) / 1000);
        }
        else
        {
            elapsed = ((stopTime - startTime) / 1000);
        }
        return elapsed;
    }





    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException
    {
        ElaspedTimetoCopyAFileUsingCharacterStream  s = new ElaspedTimetoCopyAFileUsingCharacterStream();
        s.start();

         FileReader in = null;                // CharacterStream Reader
      FileWriter out = null;

      try {
         in = new FileReader("vowels.txt");    // 23.7 MB
         out = new FileWriter("output.txt");

         int c;
         while ((c = in.read()) != -1) {
            out.write(c);
         }
      }finally {
         if (in != null) {
            in.close();
         }
         if (out != null) {
            out.close();
         }
      }

              s.stop();
        System.out.println("elapsed time in seconds: " + s.getElapsedTimeSecs());
    }
}


[Elapsed Time for Character Stream Reader][2]


  [1]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/hYo8y.png
  [2]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/xPjCK.png

值得注意的是

System.currentTimeMillis() has only millisecond accuracy at best. At worth its can be 16 ms on some windows systems. It has a lower cost that alternatives < 200 ns. System.nanoTime() is only micro-second accurate on most systems and can jump on windows systems by 100 microseconds (i.e sometimes it not as accurate as it appears) Calendar is a very expensive way to calculate time. (i can think of apart from XMLGregorianCalendar) Sometimes its the most appropriate solution but be aware you should only time long intervals.

如果你喜欢使用Java的日历API，你可以试试这个，

Date startingTime = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
//later on
Date now = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
long timeElapsed = now.getTime() - startingTime.getTime();

如果您正在编写一个必须处理持续时间的应用程序，那么请查看Joda-Time，它有专门处理持续时间、间隔和周期的类。你的getDuration()方法看起来可以返回一个Joda-Time Interval:

DateTime start = new DateTime(2004, 12, 25, 0, 0, 0, 0);
DateTime end = new DateTime(2005, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0);

public Interval getInterval() {
    Interval interval = new Interval(start, end);
}