这个答案只使用Duration方法，适用于Java 8:

public static String format(Duration d) {
    long days = d.toDays();
    d = d.minusDays(days);
    long hours = d.toHours();
    d = d.minusHours(hours);
    long minutes = d.toMinutes();
    d = d.minusMinutes(minutes);
    long seconds = d.getSeconds() ;
    return 
            (days ==  0?"":days+" days,")+ 
            (hours == 0?"":hours+" hours,")+ 
            (minutes ==  0?"":minutes+" minutes,")+ 
            (seconds == 0?"":seconds+" seconds,");
}

String duration(Temporal from, Temporal to) {
    final StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
    for (ChronoUnit unit : new ChronoUnit[]{YEARS, MONTHS, WEEKS, DAYS, HOURS, MINUTES, SECONDS}) {
        long amount = unit.between(from, to);
        if (amount == 0) {
            continue;
        }
        builder.append(' ')
                .append(amount)
                .append(' ')
                .append(unit.name().toLowerCase());
        from = from.plus(amount, unit);
    }
    return builder.toString().trim();
}

这可能有点俗气，但如果你决心使用Java 8的Java .time来实现这一点，这是一个很好的解决方案:

import java.time.Duration;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatterBuilder;
import java.time.temporal.ChronoField;
import java.time.temporal.Temporal;
import java.time.temporal.TemporalAccessor;
import java.time.temporal.TemporalField;
import java.time.temporal.UnsupportedTemporalTypeException;

public class TemporalDuration implements TemporalAccessor {
    private static final Temporal BASE_TEMPORAL = LocalDateTime.of(0, 1, 1, 0, 0);

    private final Duration duration;
    private final Temporal temporal;

    public TemporalDuration(Duration duration) {
        this.duration = duration;
        this.temporal = duration.addTo(BASE_TEMPORAL);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isSupported(TemporalField field) {
        if(!temporal.isSupported(field)) return false;
        long value = temporal.getLong(field)-BASE_TEMPORAL.getLong(field);
        return value!=0L;
    }

    @Override
    public long getLong(TemporalField field) {
        if(!isSupported(field)) throw new UnsupportedTemporalTypeException(new StringBuilder().append(field.toString()).toString());
        return temporal.getLong(field)-BASE_TEMPORAL.getLong(field);
    }

    public Duration getDuration() {
        return duration;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return dtf.format(this);
    }

    private static final DateTimeFormatter dtf = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
            .optionalStart()//second
            .optionalStart()//minute
            .optionalStart()//hour
            .optionalStart()//day
            .optionalStart()//month
            .optionalStart()//year
            .appendValue(ChronoField.YEAR).appendLiteral(" Years ").optionalEnd()
            .appendValue(ChronoField.MONTH_OF_YEAR).appendLiteral(" Months ").optionalEnd()
            .appendValue(ChronoField.DAY_OF_MONTH).appendLiteral(" Days ").optionalEnd()
            .appendValue(ChronoField.HOUR_OF_DAY).appendLiteral(" Hours ").optionalEnd()
            .appendValue(ChronoField.MINUTE_OF_HOUR).appendLiteral(" Minutes ").optionalEnd()
            .appendValue(ChronoField.SECOND_OF_MINUTE).appendLiteral(" Seconds").optionalEnd()
            .toFormatter();

}

从Java 9开始，这变得更容易了。Duration仍然是不可格式化的，但是添加了获取小时、分钟和秒的方法，这使得任务更简单:

    LocalDateTime start = LocalDateTime.of(2019, Month.JANUARY, 17, 15, 24, 12);
    LocalDateTime end = LocalDateTime.of(2019, Month.JANUARY, 18, 15, 43, 33);
    Duration diff = Duration.between(start, end);
    String hms = String.format("%d:%02d:%02d", 
                                diff.toHours(), 
                                diff.toMinutesPart(), 
                                diff.toSecondsPart());
    System.out.println(hms);

这个代码片段的输出是:

24:19:21

这是一个可行的选择。

public static String showDuration(LocalTime otherTime){          
    DateTimeFormatter df = DateTimeFormatter.ISO_LOCAL_TIME;
    LocalTime now = LocalTime.now();
    System.out.println("now: " + now);
    System.out.println("otherTime: " + otherTime);
    System.out.println("otherTime: " + otherTime.format(df));

    Duration span = Duration.between(otherTime, now);
    LocalTime fTime = LocalTime.ofNanoOfDay(span.toNanos());
    String output = fTime.format(df);

    System.out.println(output);
    return output;
}

使用

System.out.println(showDuration(LocalTime.of(9, 30, 0, 0)));

产生如下内容:

otherTime: 09:30
otherTime: 09:30:00
11:31:27.463
11:31:27.463

我使用Apache common的DurationFormatUtils，就像这样:

DurationFormatUtils.formatDuration(millis, "**H:mm:ss**", true);