Tests if this date is after the specified date.

  Tests if this date is after the specified date.
Returns: true if and only if the instant represented by this Date object is strictly later than the instant represented by when; false otherwise.
Parameters:
- when - a date.
Throws:
- NullPointerException - if when is null.

  Tests if this date is before the specified date.

  Tests if this date is before the specified date.
Returns: true if and only if the instant of time represented by this Date object is strictly earlier than the instant represented by when; false otherwise.
Parameters:
- when - a date.
Throws:
- NullPointerException - if when is null.

Return a copy of this object.

  Compares two Dates for ordering.

  Compares two Dates for ordering.
Returns: the value 0 if the argument Date is equal to this Date; a value less than 0 if this Date is before the Date argument; and a value greater than 0 if this Date is after the Date argument.
Parameters:
- anotherDate - the Date to be compared.
Throws:
- NullPointerException - if anotherDate is null.
Since: 1.2

  Compares two dates for equality.

  Compares two dates for equality. The result is true if and only if the argument is not null and is a Date object that represents the same point in time, to the millisecond, as this object.

Thus, two Date objects are equal if and only if the getTime method returns the same long value for both.
Returns: true if the objects are the same; false otherwise.
Parameters:
- obj - the object to compare with.
See Also: Date.getTime(),

  Returns the hour represented by this Date object.

  Returns the hour represented by this Date object. The
returned value is a number (0 through 23)
representing the hour within the day that contains or begins
with the instant in time represented by this Date
object, as interpreted in the local time zone.
Returns: the hour represented by this date.
See Also: Calendar,

  Returns the number of minutes past the hour represented by this date, as interpreted in the local time zone.

  Returns the number of minutes past the hour represented by this date,
as interpreted in the local time zone.
The value returned is between 0 and 59.
Returns: the number of minutes past the hour represented by this date.
See Also: Calendar,

  Returns the number of seconds past the minute represented by this date.

  Returns the number of seconds past the minute represented by this date.
The value returned is between 0 and 61. The
values 60 and 61 can only occur on those
Java Virtual Machines that take leap seconds into account.
Returns: the number of seconds past the minute represented by this date.
See Also: Calendar,

  Returns the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT represented by this Date object.

  Returns the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT
represented by this Date object.
Returns: the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT represented by this date.

  Returns the offset, measured in minutes, for the local time zone relative to UTC that is appropriate for the time represented by this Date object.

  Returns the offset, measured in minutes, for the local time zone relative to UTC that is appropriate for the time represented by this Date object.

For example, in Massachusetts, five time zones west of Greenwich:

 new Date(96, 1, 14).getTimezoneOffset() returns 300

because on February 14, 1996, standard time (Eastern Standard Time) is in use, which is offset five hours from UTC; but:

 new Date(96, 5, 1).getTimezoneOffset() returns 240

because on June 1, 1996, daylight saving time (Eastern Daylight Time) is in use, which is offset only four hours from UTC.

This method produces the same result as if it computed:

 (this.getTime() - UTC(this.getYear(), 
                       this.getMonth(), 
                       this.getDate(),
                       this.getHours(), 
                       this.getMinutes(), 
                       this.getSeconds())) / (60 * 1000)
 

Returns: the time-zone offset, in minutes, for the current time zone.
See Also: Calendar.ZONE_OFFSET, Calendar.DST_OFFSET, TimeZone.getDefault(),

  Returns a hash code value for this object.

  Returns a hash code value for this object. The result is the
exclusive OR of the two halves of the primitive long
value returned by the Date.getTime()
method. That is, the hash code is the value of the expression:

 (int)(this.getTime()^(this.getTime() >>> 32))

Returns: a hash code value for this object.

  Attempts to interpret the string s as a representation of a date and time.

  Attempts to interpret the string s as a representation of a date and time. If the attempt is successful, the time indicated is returned represented as the distance, measured in milliseconds, of that time from the epoch (00:00:00 GMT on January 1, 1970). If the attempt fails, an IllegalArgumentException is thrown.

It accepts many syntaxes; in particular, it recognizes the IETF standard date syntax: "Sat, 12 Aug 1995 13:30:00 GMT". It also understands the continental U.S. time-zone abbreviations, but for general use, a time-zone offset should be used: "Sat, 12 Aug 1995 13:30:00 GMT+0430" (4 hours, 30 minutes west of the Greenwich meridian). If no time zone is specified, the local time zone is assumed. GMT and UTC are considered equivalent.

The string s is processed from left to right, looking for data of interest. Any material in s that is within the ASCII parenthesis characters ( and ) is ignored. Parentheses may be nested. Otherwise, the only characters permitted within s are these ASCII characters:

 abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
 0123456789,+-:/

and whitespace characters.

A consecutive sequence of decimal digits is treated as a decimal number:

• If a number is preceded by + or - and a year has already been recognized, then the number is a time-zone offset. If the number is less than 24, it is an offset measured in hours. Otherwise, it is regarded as an offset in minutes, expressed in 24-hour time format without punctuation. A preceding - means a westward offset. Time zone offsets are always relative to UTC (Greenwich). Thus, for example, -5 occurring in the string would mean "five hours west of Greenwich" and +0430 would mean "four hours and thirty minutes east of Greenwich." It is permitted for the string to specify GMT, UT, or UTC redundantly-for example, GMT-5 or utc+0430.
• The number is regarded as a year number if one of the following conditions is true:
  • The number is equal to or greater than 70 and followed by a space, comma, slash, or end of string
  • The number is less than 70, and both a month and a day of the month have already been recognized
  If the recognized year number is less than 100, it is interpreted as an abbreviated year relative to a century of which dates are within 80 years before and 19 years after the time when the Date class is initialized. After adjusting the year number, 1900 is subtracted from it. For example, if the current year is 1999 then years in the range 19 to 99 are assumed to mean 1919 to 1999, while years from 0 to 18 are assumed to mean 2000 to 2018. Note that this is slightly different from the interpretation of years less than 100 that is used in SimpleDateFormat.
• If the number is followed by a colon, it is regarded as an hour, unless an hour has already been recognized, in which case it is regarded as a minute.
• If the number is followed by a slash, it is regarded as a month (it is decreased by 1 to produce a number in the range 0 to 11), unless a month has already been recognized, in which case it is regarded as a day of the month.
• If the number is followed by whitespace, a comma, a hyphen, or end of string, then if an hour has been recognized but not a minute, it is regarded as a minute; otherwise, if a minute has been recognized but not a second, it is regarded as a second; otherwise, it is regarded as a day of the month.

A consecutive sequence of letters is regarded as a word and treated as follows:

• A word that matches AM, ignoring case, is ignored (but the parse fails if an hour has not been recognized or is less than 1 or greater than 12).
• A word that matches PM, ignoring case, adds 12 to the hour (but the parse fails if an hour has not been recognized or is less than 1 or greater than 12).
• Any word that matches any prefix of SUNDAY, MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY, or SATURDAY, ignoring case, is ignored. For example, sat, Friday, TUE, and Thurs are ignored.
• Otherwise, any word that matches any prefix of JANUARY, FEBRUARY, MARCH, APRIL, MAY, JUNE, JULY, AUGUST, SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, or DECEMBER, ignoring case, and considering them in the order given here, is recognized as specifying a month and is converted to a number (0 to 11). For example, aug, Sept, april, and NOV are recognized as months. So is Ma, which is recognized as MARCH, not MAY.
• Any word that matches GMT, UT, or UTC, ignoring case, is treated as referring to UTC.
• Any word that matches EST, CST, MST, or PST, ignoring case, is recognized as referring to the time zone in North America that is five, six, seven, or eight hours west of Greenwich, respectively. Any word that matches EDT, CDT, MDT, or PDT, ignoring case, is recognized as referring to the same time zone, respectively, during daylight saving time.

Once the entire string s has been scanned, it is converted to a time result in one of two ways. If a time zone or time-zone offset has been recognized, then the year, month, day of month, hour, minute, and second are interpreted in UTC and then the time-zone offset is applied. Otherwise, the year, month, day of month, hour, minute, and second are interpreted in the local time zone.
Returns: the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT represented by the string argument.
Parameters:
- s - a string to be parsed as a date.
See Also: DateFormat,

  Sets the hour of this Date object to the specified value.

  Sets the hour of this Date object to the specified value.
This Date object is modified so that it represents a point
in time within the specified hour of the day, with the year, month,
date, minute, and second the same as before, as interpreted in the
local time zone.
Parameters:
- hours - the hour value.
See Also: Calendar,

  Sets the minutes of this Date object to the specified value.

  Sets the minutes of this Date object to the specified value.
This Date object is modified so that it represents a point
in time within the specified minute of the hour, with the year, month,
date, hour, and second the same as before, as interpreted in the
local time zone.
Parameters:
- minutes - the value of the minutes.
See Also: Calendar,

  Sets the seconds of this Date to the specified value.

  Sets the seconds of this Date to the specified value.
This Date object is modified so that it represents a
point in time within the specified second of the minute, with
the year, month, date, hour, and minute the same as before, as
interpreted in the local time zone.
Parameters:
- seconds - the seconds value.
See Also: Calendar,

  Creates a string representation of this Date object of the form:

  Creates a string representation of this Date object of the form: d mon yyyy hh:mm:ss GMT

where:

• d is the day of the month (1 through 31), as one or two decimal digits.
• mon is the month (Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec).
• yyyy is the year, as four decimal digits.
• hh is the hour of the day (00 through 23), as two decimal digits.
• mm is the minute within the hour (00 through 59), as two decimal digits.
• ss is the second within the minute (00 through 61), as two decimal digits.
• GMT is exactly the ASCII letters "GMT" to indicate Greenwich Mean Time.

The result does not depend on the local time zone.
Returns: a string representation of this date, using the Internet GMT conventions.
See Also: DateFormat, Date.toString(), Date.toLocaleString(),

  Creates a string representation of this Date object in an implementation-dependent form.

  Creates a string representation of this Date object in an
implementation-dependent form. The intent is that the form should
be familiar to the user of the Java application, wherever it may
happen to be running. The intent is comparable to that of the
"%c" format supported by the strftime()
function of ISO C.
Returns: a string representation of this date, using the locale conventions.
See Also: DateFormat, Date.toString(), Date.toGMTString(),

  Determines the date and time based on the arguments.

  Determines the date and time based on the arguments. The
arguments are interpreted as a year, month, day of the month,
hour of the day, minute within the hour, and second within the
minute, exactly as for the Date constructor with six
arguments, except that the arguments are interpreted relative
to UTC rather than to the local time zone. The time indicated is
returned represented as the distance, measured in milliseconds,
of that time from the epoch (00:00:00 GMT on January 1, 1970).
Returns: the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT for the date and time specified by the arguments.
Parameters:
- year - the year minus 1900.
- month - the month between 0-11.
- date - the day of the month between 1-31.
- hrs - the hours between 0-23.
- min - the minutes between 0-59.
- sec - the seconds between 0-59.
See Also: Calendar,