一个稍微简单一点的选择:

System.currentTimeMillis() - oldDate.getTime()

至于“更好”，你到底需要什么?将时间持续时间表示为小时数和天数等的问题是，由于日期的复杂性，它可能导致不准确和错误的期望(例如，由于夏令时，一天可能有23或25小时)。

只需在两个Date对象上使用下面的方法。如果你想传递当前日期，只需传递new date()作为第二个参数，因为它是用当前时间初始化的。

public String getDateDiffString(Date dateOne, Date dateTwo)
{
    long timeOne = dateOne.getTime();
    long timeTwo = dateTwo.getTime();
    long oneDay = 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24;
    long delta = (timeTwo - timeOne) / oneDay;

    if (delta > 0) {
        return "dateTwo is " + delta + " days after dateOne";
    }
    else {
        delta *= -1;
        return "dateTwo is " + delta + " days before dateOne";
     }
}

此外，除了从天数，如果，你也想要其他参数的差异，使用下面的片段，

int year = delta / 365;
int rest = delta % 365;
int month = rest / 30;
rest = rest % 30;
int weeks = rest / 7;
int days = rest % 7;

p.s. Code完全取自SO答案。

因为这个问题用Scala做了标记，

import scala.concurrent.duration._
val diff = (System.currentTimeMillis() - oldDate.getTime).milliseconds
val diffSeconds = diff.toSeconds
val diffMinutes = diff.toMinutes
val diffHours = diff.toHours
val diffDays = diff.toDays

不使用标准API，不行。你可以这样做:

class Duration {
    private final TimeUnit unit;
    private final long length;
    // ...
}

或者你可以使用Joda:

DateTime a = ..., b = ...;
Duration d = new Duration(a, b);

查看示例http://www.roseindia.net/java/beginners/DateDifferent.shtml 这个例子给出了天、小时、分钟、秒和毫秒的差异:)。

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;

public class DateDifferent {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Date date1 = new Date(2009, 01, 10);
        Date date2 = new Date(2009, 07, 01);
        Calendar calendar1 = Calendar.getInstance();
        Calendar calendar2 = Calendar.getInstance();
        calendar1.setTime(date1);
        calendar2.setTime(date2);
        long milliseconds1 = calendar1.getTimeInMillis();
        long milliseconds2 = calendar2.getTimeInMillis();
        long diff = milliseconds2 - milliseconds1;
        long diffSeconds = diff / 1000;
        long diffMinutes = diff / (60 * 1000);
        long diffHours = diff / (60 * 60 * 1000);
        long diffDays = diff / (24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
        System.out.println("\nThe Date Different Example");
        System.out.println("Time in milliseconds: " + diff + " milliseconds.");
        System.out.println("Time in seconds: " + diffSeconds + " seconds.");
        System.out.println("Time in minutes: " + diffMinutes + " minutes.");
        System.out.println("Time in hours: " + diffHours + " hours.");
        System.out.println("Time in days: " + diffDays + " days.");
    }
}

使用java。Java 8+内置的时间框架:

ZonedDateTime now = ZonedDateTime.now();
ZonedDateTime oldDate = now.minusDays(1).minusMinutes(10);
Duration duration = Duration.between(oldDate, now);
System.out.println("ISO-8601: " + duration);
System.out.println("Minutes: " + duration.toMinutes());

输出:

ISO-8601: PT24H10M 分钟:罢工,

有关更多信息，请参阅Oracle教程和ISO 8601标准。