The java.util.Date class isn't actually deprecated, just that constructor, along with a couple other constructors/methods are deprecated. It was deprecated because that sort of usage doesn't work well with internationalization. The Calendar class should be used instead:

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(); cal.set(Calendar.YEAR, 1988); cal.set(Calendar.MONTH, Calendar.JANUARY); cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1); Date dateRepresentation = cal.getTime(); 

Take a look at the date Javadoc:

http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Date.html

The specific Date constructor is deprecated, and Calendar should be used instead. The JavaDoc for Date describes which constructors are deprecated and how to replace them using a Calendar.

I came across this question as a duplicate of a newer question which asked what the non-deprecated way to get a Date at a specific year, month, and day was.

The answers here so far say to use the Calendar class, and that was true until Java 8 came out. But as of Java 8, the standard way to do this is:

LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.of(1985, 1, 1); 

And then if you really really need a java.util.Date, you can use the suggestions in this question.

For more info, check out the API or the tutorials for Java 8.

One reason that the constructor is deprecated is that the meaning of the year parameter is not what you would expect. The javadoc says:

As of JDK version 1.1, replaced by Calendar.set(year + 1900, month, date).

Notice that the year field is the number of years since 1900, so your sample code most likely won't do what you expect it to do. And that's the point.

In general, the Date API only supports the modern western calendar, has idiosyncratically specified components, and behaves inconsistently if you set fields.

The Calendar and GregorianCalendar APIs are better than Date, and the 3rd-party Joda-time APIs were generally thought to be the best. In Java 8, they introduced the java.time packages, and these are now the recommended alternative.

Please note that Calendar.getTime() is nondeterministic in the sense that the day time part defaults to the current time.

To reproduce, try running following code a couple of times:

Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance(); c.set(2010, 2, 7); // NB: 2 means March, not February! System.err.println(c.getTime()); 

Output eg.:

Sun Mar 07 10:46:21 CET 2010 

Running the exact same code a couple of minutes later yields:

Sun Mar 07 10:57:51 CET 2010 

So, while set() forces corresponding fields to correct values, it leaks system time for the other fields. (Tested above with Sun jdk6 & jdk7)

Date itself is not deprecated. It's just a lot of its methods are. See here for details.

Use java.util.Calendar instead.

As the Date constructor is deprecated, you can try this code.

import java.util.Calendar; Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance(); calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 6);// for 6 hour calendar.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);// for 0 min calendar.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);// for 0 sec calendar.set(1996,0,26);// for Date [year,month(0 to 11), date] Date date = new Date(calendar.getTimeInMillis());// calendar gives long value String mConvertedDate = date.toString();// Fri Jan 26 06:00:00 GMT+05:30 1996 

Most Java developers currently use the third party package Joda-Time. It is widely regarded to be a much better implementation.

Java 8 however will have a new java.time.* package. See this article, Introducing the New Date and Time API for JDK 8.

The Date constructor expects years in the format of years since 1900, zero-based months, one-based days, and sets hours/minutes/seconds/milliseconds to zero.

Date result = new Date(year, month, day); 

So using the Calendar replacement (zero-based years, zero-based months, one-based days) for the deprecated Date constructor, we need something like:

Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance(); calendar.clear(); // Sets hours/minutes/seconds/milliseconds to zero calendar.set(year + 1900, month, day); Date result = calendar.getTime(); 

Or using Java 1.8 (which has zero-based year, and one-based months and days):

Date result = Date.from(LocalDate.of(year + 1900, month + 1, day).atStartOfDay(ZoneId.systemDefault()).toInstant()); 

Here are equal versions of Date, Calendar, and Java 1.8:

int year = 1985; // 1985 int month = 1; // January int day = 1; // 1st // Original, 1900-based year, zero-based month, one-based day Date date1 = new Date(year - 1900, month - 1, day); // Calendar, zero-based year, zero-based month, one-based day Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance(); calendar.clear(); // Sets hours/minutes/seconds/milliseconds to zero calendar.set(year, month - 1, day); Date date2 = calendar.getTime(); // Java-time back to Date, zero-based year, one-based month, one-based day Date date3 = Date.from(LocalDate.of(year, month, day).atStartOfDay(ZoneId.systemDefault()).toInstant()); SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS"); // All 3 print "1985-Jan-01 00:00:00.000" System.out.println(format.format(date1)); System.out.println(format.format(date2)); System.out.println(format.format(date3)); 

Similar to what binnyb suggested, you might consider using the newer Calendar > GregorianCalendar method. See these more recent docs:

http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/GregorianCalendar.html

You can make a method just like new Date(year,month,date) in your code by using Calendar class.

private Date getDate(int year,int month,int date){ Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(); cal.set(Calendar.YEAR, year); cal.set(Calendar.MONTH, month-1); cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, day); return cal.getTime(); } 

It will work just like the deprecated constructor of Date

I got this from Secure Code Guideline for Java

The examples in this section use java.util.Date extensively as it is an example of a mutable API class. In an application, it would be preferable to use the new Java Date and Time API (java.time.*) which has been designed to be immutable.

new GregorianCalendar(1985, Calendar.JANUARY, 1).getTime(); 

(the pre-Java-8 way)