Java, Calculate the number of days between two dates

Java 8 and later: ChronoUnit.between

Use instances of ChronoUnit to calculate amount of time in different units (days,months, seconds).

For Example:

ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(startDate,endDate)

Note: this answer was written in 2011. I would recommend using java.time now instead of Joda Time.

Well to start with, you should only deal with them as strings when you have to. Most of the time you should work with them in a data type which actually describes the data you're working with.

I would recommend that you use Joda Time, which is a much better API than Date/Calendar. It sounds like you should use the LocalDate type in this case. You can then use:

int days = Days.daysBetween(date1, date2).getDays();

try this code

     Calendar cal1 = new GregorianCalendar();
     Calendar cal2 = new GregorianCalendar();

     SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("ddMMyyyy");

     Date date = sdf.parse("your first date");
     cal1.setTime(date)
     date = sdf.parse("your second date");
     cal2.setTime(date);

    //cal1.set(2008, 8, 1); 
     //cal2.set(2008, 9, 31);
     System.out.println("Days= "+daysBetween(cal1.getTime(),cal2.getTime()));

this function

     public int daysBetween(Date d1, Date d2){
             return (int)( (d2.getTime() - d1.getTime()) / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24));
     }