How to find the duration of difference between two dates in java?

The date difference conversion could be handled in a better way using Java built-in class, TimeUnit. It provides utility methods to do that:

Date startDate = // Set start date
Date endDate   = // Set end date

long duration  = endDate.getTime() - startDate.getTime();

long diffInSeconds = TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toSeconds(duration);
long diffInMinutes = TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toMinutes(duration);
long diffInHours = TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toHours(duration);
long diffInDays = TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toDays(duration);

try the following

{
        Date dt2 = new DateAndTime().getCurrentDateTime();

        long diff = dt2.getTime() - dt1.getTime();
        long diffSeconds = diff / 1000 % 60;
        long diffMinutes = diff / (60 * 1000) % 60;
        long diffHours = diff / (60 * 60 * 1000);
        int diffInDays = (int) ((dt2.getTime() - dt1.getTime()) / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24));

        if (diffInDays > 1) {
            System.err.println("Difference in number of days (2) : " + diffInDays);
            return false;
        } else if (diffHours > 24) {

            System.err.println(">24");
            return false;
        } else if ((diffHours == 24) && (diffMinutes >= 1)) {
            System.err.println("minutes");
            return false;
        }
        return true;
}

Use Joda-Time library

DateTime startTime, endTime;
Period p = new Period(startTime, endTime);
long hours = p.getHours();
long minutes = p.getMinutes();

Joda Time has a concept of time Interval:

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

One more example Date Difference

One more Link

or with Java-8 (which integrated Joda-Time concepts)

Instant start, end;//
Duration dur = Duration.between(start, stop);
long hours = dur.toHours();
long minutes = dur.toMinutes();

Here is how the problem can solved in Java 8 just like the answer by shamimz.

Source : http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/datetime/iso/period.html

LocalDate today = LocalDate.now();
LocalDate birthday = LocalDate.of(1960, Month.JANUARY, 1);

Period p = Period.between(birthday, today);
long p2 = ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(birthday, today);

System.out.println("You are " + p.getYears() + " years, " + p.getMonths() + " months, and " + p.getDays() + " days old. (" + p2 + " days total)");

The code produces output similar to the following:

You are 53 years, 4 months, and 29 days old. (19508 days total)

We have to use LocalDateTime http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/time/LocalDateTime.html to get hour,minute,second differences.