getting the difference between date in days in java

Use JodaTime for this. It is much better than the standard Java DateTime Apis. Here is the code in JodaTime for calculating difference in days:

private static void dateDiff() {

    System.out.println("Calculate difference between two dates");
    System.out.println("=================================================================");

    DateTime startDate = new DateTime(2000, 1, 19, 0, 0, 0, 0);
    DateTime endDate = new DateTime();

    Days d = Days.daysBetween(startDate, endDate);
    int days = d.getDays();

    System.out.println("  Difference between " + endDate);
    System.out.println("  and " + startDate + " is " + days + " days.");

  }

Calendar start = Calendar.getInstance();
Calendar end = Calendar.getInstance();
start.set(2010, 7, 23);
end.set(2010, 8, 26);
Date startDate = start.getTime();
Date endDate = end.getTime();
long startTime = startDate.getTime();
long endTime = endDate.getTime();
long diffTime = endTime - startTime;
long diffDays = diffTime / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24);
DateFormat dateFormat = DateFormat.getDateInstance();
System.out.println("The difference between "+
  dateFormat.format(startDate)+" and "+
  dateFormat.format(endDate)+" is "+
  diffDays+" days.");

This will not work when crossing daylight savings time (or leap seconds) as orange80 pointed out and might as well not give the expected results when using different times of day. Using JodaTime might be easier for correct results, as the only correct way with plain Java before 8 I know is to use Calendar's add and before/after methods to check and adjust the calculation:

start.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, (int)diffDays);
while (start.before(end)) {
    start.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1);
    diffDays++;
}
while (start.after(end)) {
    start.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, -1);
    diffDays--;
}

Like this.

import java.util.Date;
import java.util.GregorianCalendar;

/**
 * DateDiff -- compute the difference between two dates.
 */
public class DateDiff {
  public static void main(String[] av) {
    /** The date at the end of the last century */
    Date d1 = new GregorianCalendar(2000, 11, 31, 23, 59).getTime();

    /** Today's date */
    Date today = new Date();

    // Get msec from each, and subtract.
    long diff = today.getTime() - d1.getTime();

    System.out.println("The 21st century (up to " + today + ") is "
        + (diff / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24)) + " days old.");
  }

}

Here is an article on Java date arithmetic.