另一个纯Java变体:

public boolean isWithin30Days(Calendar queryCalendar) {

    // 1. Take the date you are checking, and roll it back N days
    Calendar queryCalMinus30Days = Calendar.getInstance();
    queryCalMinus30Days.setTime(queryCalendar.getTime());
    queryCalMinus30Days.add(Calendar.DATE, -30); // subtract 30 days from the calendar

    // 2. Get respective milliseconds for the two Calendars: now & queryCal minus N days 
    long nowL = Calendar.getInstance().getTimeInMillis();
    long queryCalMinus30DaysL = queryCalMinus30Days.getTimeInMillis();

    // 3. if nowL is still less than the queryCalMinus30DaysL, it means queryCalendar is more than 30 days into future
    boolean isWithin30Days = nowL >= queryCalMinus30DaysL;

    return isWithin30Days;
}

感谢这里的入门代码:https://stackoverflow.com/a/30207726/2162226

这是另一个样本。基本上适用于用户定义的模式。

   public static LinkedHashMap<String, Object> checkDateDiff(DateTimeFormatter dtfObj, String startDate, String endDate)
   {
          Map<String, Object> dateDiffMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
          DateTime start = DateTime.parse(startDate,dtfObj);
          DateTime end = DateTime.parse(endDate,dtfObj);
          Interval interval = new Interval(start, end);
          Period period = interval.toPeriod();

          dateDiffMap.put("ISO-8601_PERIOD_FORMAT", period);
          dateDiffMap.put("YEAR", period.getYears());
          dateDiffMap.put("MONTH", period.getMonths());
          dateDiffMap.put("WEEK", period.getWeeks());
          dateDiffMap.put("DAY", period.getWeeks());             
          dateDiffMap.put("HOUR", period.getHours());
          dateDiffMap.put("MINUTE", period.getMinutes());
          dateDiffMap.put("SECOND", period.getSeconds());

          return dateDiffMap;        
   }

使用GMT时区获取一个Calendar实例，使用Calendar类的set方法设置时间。GMT时区偏移量为0(并不重要)，夏令时标志设置为false。

    final Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));

    cal.set(Calendar.YEAR, 2011);
    cal.set(Calendar.MONTH, 9);
    cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 29);
    cal.set(Calendar.HOUR, 0);
    cal.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
    cal.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
    final Date startDate = cal.getTime();

    cal.set(Calendar.YEAR, 2011);
    cal.set(Calendar.MONTH, 12);
    cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 21);
    cal.set(Calendar.HOUR, 0);
    cal.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
    cal.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
    final Date endDate = cal.getTime();

    System.out.println((endDate.getTime() - startDate.getTime()) % (1000l * 60l * 60l * 24l));

由于这里所有的答案都是正确的，但使用传统java或第三方库，如joda或类似的，我将放弃使用新java的另一种方式。Java 8及以后版本中的时间类。参见Oracle教程。

使用LocalDate和ChronoUnit:

LocalDate d1 = LocalDate.of(2017, 5, 1);
LocalDate d2 = LocalDate.of(2017, 5, 18);

long days = ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(d1, d2);
System.out.println( days );

另一个纯Java变体:

public boolean isWithin30Days(Calendar queryCalendar) {

    // 1. Take the date you are checking, and roll it back N days
    Calendar queryCalMinus30Days = Calendar.getInstance();
    queryCalMinus30Days.setTime(queryCalendar.getTime());
    queryCalMinus30Days.add(Calendar.DATE, -30); // subtract 30 days from the calendar

    // 2. Get respective milliseconds for the two Calendars: now & queryCal minus N days 
    long nowL = Calendar.getInstance().getTimeInMillis();
    long queryCalMinus30DaysL = queryCalMinus30Days.getTimeInMillis();

    // 3. if nowL is still less than the queryCalMinus30DaysL, it means queryCalendar is more than 30 days into future
    boolean isWithin30Days = nowL >= queryCalMinus30DaysL;

    return isWithin30Days;
}

感谢这里的入门代码:https://stackoverflow.com/a/30207726/2162226

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)。