Getting the currnet system date

Question

Hello to all. I am trying to figure out how to get the current time of the OS being used. I am using Windows XP Media Center...not like that matters since Java is unicode, but I cannot figure out how to do it. Right now I am asking the user to input the current date and time by the following code:
<CODE>
private String date;
     private String time;
     public void setDateAndTime()
               date = JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Please enter the current date: yyyy/mm/dd");
               time = JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Please enter the current time: hh:mm");
               getDateAndTime(date, time);
     public String getDateAndTime(String arg_date, String arg_time)
               DateFormat dF = new SimpleDateFormat(arg_date + " " + arg_time);
               Date dateLocale = new Date();
               System.out.println(dF.format(dateLocale));//just a test print with no swing
               return dF.format(dateLocale);
</CODE>
I am just wondering how I can do this without having to get the input from the user and get a more precise date and times without having to rely on the user.

Answer 1

You can use System.currentTimeMillis or new Date() to get the current date and time from the OS.
If you want the user to input a String that you will turn into a Date, use SimpleDateFormat.
http://www.javaworld.com/jw-12-2000/jw-1229-dates.html
http://www.javaalmanac.com/egs/java.text/FormatDate.html
http://www.javaalmanac.com/egs/java.text/ParseDate.html