I have a date of type java.util.Date
I want to subtract three months from it.
Not finding a lot of joy in the API.
解决方案
Here's the plain JDK version, it needs the Calendar class as a helper:
Date referenceDate = new Date();
Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
c.setTime(referenceDate);
c.add(Calendar.MONTH, -3);
return c.getTime();
But you should seriously consider using the Joda library, because of various shortcomings of the Date and Calendar classes. With Joda you can do the following:
new DateTime().minusMonths(3).toDate();
Or if you want to subtract from a given date instead of the current:
new DateTime(referenceDate).minusMonths(3).toDate();
Update for Java 8: With Java 8 you can also use the new JSR 310 API (which is inspired by Joda):
LocalDateTime.from(referenceDate.toInstant()).minusMonths(3);