Using the LocalDate Class

import statements

To use the LocalDate class, you will need to include the import statement:

import java.time.LocalDate;

Alternative to Constructors

There isn’t a constructor for the LocalDate class, so you aren’t able to create a LocalDate object by doing:

You will get an error that states that the constructor cannot be applied.

There are a couple ways to create a LocalDate object.

Scenario 1

Suppose you are writing a rewards app and want to keep track of when a user has joined the app. This allows you to give them a special reward once they have been a member for a year. There is a static method, called now that can be used to create a LocalDate object with today’s date. A static method is called using the class name instead of using an object.

Note that the date is listed as year-month-day.

Scenario 2

Perhaps this same rewards app wants to record the user’s birthday to give them a free cookie every year around their birthday. After obtaining the String representation of their birthday, which is April 19, 2006, entered as 2006-04-19, we can use the static method parse to create a LocalDate object for their birthday.

Scenario 3

Another way you could set the birthday would be to use the static method ofwith the birthday entered as int values. For example:

Other Methods in LocalDate

Now that you have a date, there are some helpful methods that you can use to work with the date.

LocalDate minusDays(long daysToSubtract) and LocalDate plusDays(long daysToAdd)

Maybe we want to allow the user to receive their reward in a 30-day range around their birthday, 15 days prior and 15 days after their birthday. To do this, we need to obtain these dates. There are two methods that can be used to accomplish this:

• earlier15Days is assigned the LocalDate with the value 04-04-2006. Remember this is in day, month, year order.
• later15Days is assigned the LocalDate with the value 04-05-2006.

boolean isAfter(ChronoLocalDate other) and boolean isBefore (ChronoLocalDate other)

• boolean isAfter (ChronoLocalDate other) returns true if this LocalDate is chronologically after other; false otherwise.
• boolean isBefore (ChronoLocalDate other) returns true if this LocalDate is chronologically before other; false otherwise.

• afterStart is assigned true since a birthday of 19-04-2006 is after the date 04-04-2006.
• afterEnd is assigned false since a birthday of 19-04-2006 is not after the date 04-05-2006.
• beforeStart is assigned false since a birthday of 19-04-2006 is not before the date 04-04-2006.
• beforeEnd is assigned true since a birthday of 19-04-2006 is before 04-05-2006.

int getYear() and LocalDate withYear(int year)

We have a birthday every year. In this code segment, we obtained the current year from today by using the getYear() method and then updated birthday to have the current year in the birthday by using the withYear() method.

• birthday gets updated and assigned to a date that has the 19-04 for the day and month and the current year for the year.

There are many more useful methods for LocalDate. To find more, please visit the []LocalDate API](https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/24/docs/api/java.base/java/time/LocalDate.html).