Set time to 00:00:00

Use another constant instead of Calendar.HOUR, use Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY.

calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);

Calendar.HOUR uses 0-11 (for use with AM/PM), and Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY uses 0-23.

To quote the Javadocs:

public static final int HOUR

Field number for get and set indicating the hour of the morning or afternoon. HOUR is used for the 12-hour clock (0 - 11). Noon and midnight are represented by 0, not by 12. E.g., at 10:04:15.250 PM the HOUR is 10.

and

public static final int HOUR_OF_DAY

Field number for get and set indicating the hour of the day. HOUR_OF_DAY is used for the 24-hour clock. E.g., at 10:04:15.250 PM the HOUR_OF_DAY is 22.

Testing ("now" is currently c. 14:55 on July 23, 2013 Pacific Daylight Time):

public class Main
{
   static SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        Calendar now = Calendar.getInstance();
        now.set(Calendar.HOUR, 0);
        now.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
        now.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
        System.out.println(sdf.format(now.getTime()));
        now.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
        System.out.println(sdf.format(now.getTime()));
    }
}

Output:

$ javac Main.java
$ java Main
2013-07-23 12:00:00
2013-07-23 00:00:00

java.time

Using the java.time framework built into Java 8 and later. See Tutorial.

import java.time.LocalTime;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;

LocalDateTime now = LocalDateTime.now(); # 2015-11-19T19:42:19.224
# start of a day
now.with(LocalTime.MIN); # 2015-11-19T00:00
now.with(LocalTime.MIDNIGHT); # 2015-11-19T00:00

If you do not need time-of-day (hour, minute, second etc. parts) consider using LocalDate class.

LocalDate.now(); # 2015-11-19

Here are couple of utility functions I use to do just this.

/**
 * sets all the time related fields to ZERO!
 *
 * @param date
 *
 * @return Date with hours, minutes, seconds and ms set to ZERO!
 */
public static Date zeroTime( final Date date )
{
    return DateTimeUtil.setTime( date, 0, 0, 0, 0 );
}

/**
 * Set the time of the given Date
 *
 * @param date
 * @param hourOfDay
 * @param minute
 * @param second
 * @param ms
 *
 * @return new instance of java.util.Date with the time set
 */
public static Date setTime( final Date date, final int hourOfDay, final int minute, final int second, final int ms )
{
    final GregorianCalendar gc = new GregorianCalendar();
    gc.setTime( date );
    gc.set( Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, hourOfDay );
    gc.set( Calendar.MINUTE, minute );
    gc.set( Calendar.SECOND, second );
    gc.set( Calendar.MILLISECOND, ms );
    return gc.getTime();
}