A Java one liner

public String getCurrentTimeStamp() { return new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS").format(new Date()); } 

in JDK8 style

public String getCurrentLocalDateTimeStamp() { return LocalDateTime.now() .format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS")); } 

You only have to add the millisecond field in your date format string:

new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS"); 

The API doc of SimpleDateFormat describes the format string in detail.

try this:-

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss.SSS"); Date date = new Date(); System.out.println(dateFormat.format(date)); 

or

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss"); Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(); System.out.println(dateFormat.format(cal.getTime())); 

tl;dr

Instant.now() .toString() 

2016-05-06T23:24:25.694Z

ZonedDateTime .now ( ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" ) ) .format( DateTimeFormatter.ISO_LOCAL_DATE_TIME ) .replace( "T" , " " ) 

2016-05-06 19:24:25.694

java.time

In Java 8 and later, we have the java.time framework built into Java 8 and later. These new classes supplant the troublesome old java.util.Date/.Calendar classes. The new classes are inspired by the highly successful Joda-Time framework, intended as its successor, similar in concept but re-architected. Defined by JSR 310. Extended by the ThreeTen-Extra project. See the Tutorial.

Be aware that java.time is capable of nanosecond resolution (9 decimal places in fraction of second), versus the millisecond resolution (3 decimal places) of both java.util.Date & Joda-Time. So when formatting to display only 3 decimal places, you could be hiding data.

If you want to eliminate any microseconds or nanoseconds from your data, truncate.

Instant instant2 = instant.truncatedTo( ChronoUnit.MILLIS ) ; 

The java.time classes use ISO 8601 format by default when parsing/generating strings. A Z at the end is short for Zulu, and means UTC.

An Instant represents a moment on the timeline in UTC with resolution of up to nanoseconds. Capturing the current moment in Java 8 is limited to milliseconds, with a new implementation in Java 9 capturing up to nanoseconds depending on your computer’s hardware clock’s abilities.

Instant instant = Instant.now (); // Current date-time in UTC. String output = instant.toString (); 

2016-05-06T23:24:25.694Z

Replace the T in the middle with a space, and the Z with nothing, to get your desired output.

String output = instant.toString ().replace ( "T" , " " ).replace( "Z" , "" ; // Replace 'T', delete 'Z'. I recommend leaving the `Z` or any other such [offset-from-UTC][7] or [time zone][7] indicator to make the meaning clear, but your choice of course. 

2016-05-06 23:24:25.694

As you don't care about including the offset or time zone, make a "local" date-time unrelated to any particular locality.

String output = LocalDateTime.now ( ).toString ().replace ( "T", " " ); 

Joda-Time

The highly successful Joda-Time library was the inspiration for the java.time framework. Advisable to migrate to java.time when convenient.

The ISO 8601 format includes milliseconds, and is the default for the Joda-Time 2.4 library.

System.out.println( "Now: " + new DateTime ( DateTimeZone.UTC ) ); 

When run…

Now: 2013-11-26T20:25:12.014Z 

Also, you can ask for the milliseconds fraction-of-a-second as a number, if needed:

int millisOfSecond = myDateTime.getMillisOfSecond (); 

I would use something like this:

String.format("%tF %<tT.%<tL", dateTime); 

Variable dateTime could be any date and/or time value, see JavaDoc for Formatter.

The easiest way was to (prior to Java 8) use,

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS"); 

But SimpleDateFormat is not thread-safe. Neither java.util.Date. This will lead to leading to potential concurrency issues for users. And there are many problems in those existing designs. To overcome these now in Java 8 we have a separate package called java.time. This Java SE 8 Date and Time document has a good overview about it.

So in Java 8 something like below will do the trick (to format the current date/time),

LocalDateTime.now() .format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS")); 

And one thing to note is it was developed with the help of the popular third party library joda-time,

The project has been led jointly by the author of Joda-Time (Stephen Colebourne) and Oracle, under JSR 310, and will appear in the new Java SE 8 package java.time.

But now the joda-time is becoming deprecated and asked the users to migrate to new java.time.

Note that from Java SE 8 onwards, users are asked to migrate to java.time (JSR-310) - a core part of the JDK which replaces this project

Anyway having said that,

If you have a Calendar instance you can use below to convert it to the new java.time,

 Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance(); long longValue = calendar.getTimeInMillis(); LocalDateTime date = LocalDateTime.ofInstant(Instant.ofEpochMilli(longValue), ZoneId.systemDefault()); String formattedString = date.format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS")); System.out.println(date.toString()); // 2018-03-06T15:56:53.634 System.out.println(formattedString); // 2018-03-06 15:56:53.634 

If you had a Date object,

 Date date = new Date(); long longValue2 = date.getTime(); LocalDateTime dateTime = LocalDateTime.ofInstant(Instant.ofEpochMilli(longValue2), ZoneId.systemDefault()); String formattedString = dateTime.format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS")); System.out.println(dateTime.toString()); // 2018-03-06T15:59:30.278 System.out.println(formattedString); // 2018-03-06 15:59:30.278 

If you just had the epoch milliseconds,

LocalDateTime date = LocalDateTime.ofInstant(Instant.ofEpochMilli(epochLongValue), ZoneId.systemDefault()); 

I have a simple example here to display date and time with Millisecond......

import java.time.LocalDateTime; import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter; public class MyClass{ public static void main(String[]args){ LocalDateTime myObj = LocalDateTime.now(); DateTimeFormatter myFormat = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS"); String forDate = myObj.format(myFormat); System.out.println("The Date and Time are: " + forDate); } } 

java.time

The question and the accepted answer use java.util.Date and SimpleDateFormat which was the correct thing to do in 2009. In Mar 2014, the java.util date-time API and their formatting API, SimpleDateFormat were supplanted by the modern date-time API. Since then, it is highly recommended to stop using the legacy date-time API.

Solution using java.time, the modern date-time API:

LocalDateTime.now(ZoneId.systemDefault()) .format(DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("uuuu-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS")) 

Some important points about this solution:

1. Replace ZoneId.systemDefault() with the applicable ZoneId e.g. ZoneId.of("America/New_York").
2. If the current date-time is required in the system's default timezone (ZoneId), you do not need to use LocalDateTime#now(ZoneId zone); instead, you can use LocalDateTime#now().
3. You can use y instead of u here but I prefer u to y.

Demo:

import java.time.LocalDateTime; import java.time.ZoneId; import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter; import java.util.Locale; class Main { public static void main(String args[]) { DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("uuuu-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS", Locale.ENGLISH); // Replace ZoneId.systemDefault() with the applicable ZoneId e.g. // ZoneId.of("America/New_York") LocalDateTime ldt = LocalDateTime.now(ZoneId.systemDefault()); String formattedDateTimeStr = ldt.format(formatter); System.out.println(formattedDateTimeStr); } } 

Output from a sample run in my system's timezone, Europe/London:

2023-01-02 09:53:14.353 

ONLINE DEMO

Learn more about the modern Date-Time API from Trail: Date Time.

To complement the above answers, here is a small working example of a program that prints the current time and date, including milliseconds.

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat; import java.util.Date; public class test { public static void main(String argv[]){ SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS"); Date now = new Date(); String strDate = sdf.format(now); System.out.println(strDate); } } 

Use this to get your current time in specified format :

 DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"); System.out.print(dateFormat.format(System.currentTimeMillis())); } 

I don't see a reference to this:

SimpleDateFormat f = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMddHHmmssSSS"); 

above format is also useful.

http://www.java2s.com/Tutorials/Java/Date/Date_Format/Format_date_in_yyyyMMddHHmmssSSS_format_in_Java.htm

Ans:

DateTimeFormatter dateFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS"); ZonedDateTime start = Instant.now().atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault()); String startTimestamp = start.format(dateFormatter); 

java.text (prior to java 8)

public static ThreadLocal<DateFormat> dateFormat = new ThreadLocal<DateFormat>() { protected DateFormat initialValue() { return new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS"); }; }; ... dateFormat.get().format(new Date()); 

java.time

public static DateTimeFormatter dateTimeFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS"); ... dateTimeFormatter.format(LocalDateTime.now()); 

The doc in Java 8 names it fraction-of-second , while in Java 6 was named millisecond. This brought me to confusion

You can also use the DateTimeFormatter class from java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter package to format the required pattern.

public static String getTimeStamp() { DateTimeFormatter dateTimeFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd-HH-mm-ss.SSS"); return LocalDateTime.now().format(dateTimeFormatter); } 

Here's a way to do it while using style from user's current Locale and 24-hour setting:

android.icu.text.DateFormat.getInstanceForSkeleton( if (android.text.format.DateFormat.is24HourFormat(context)) "yMdHmsSSS" else "yMdhmsSSSa", context.resources.configuration.locales[0]).format(millis) 

You can simply get it in the format you want.

String date = String.valueOf(android.text.format.DateFormat.format("dd-MM-yyyy", new java.util.Date()));