Calendar class java

Question

I am setting the value to be 23 January 2009, but when I ask for month it returns '2' Here is my code:

Calendar calendar=GregorianCalendar.getInstance();  
calendar.set(2009,01,23);  
calendar.getTime();  
System.out.println(calendar.MONTH);  

Please help! I expect the first output to be 1, not 2!

Answer 1

Calendar.MONTH is a constant. It's used to indicate that you want the month field, using calendar.get() :

System.out.println(calendar.get(Calendar.MONTH));

Answer 2

Months are 0-based in Calendar , you must write:

calendar.set(2009, 0, 23);

...or better, to avoid confusion:

calendar.set(2009, Calendar.JANUARY, 23);

Answer 3

You need to use

calendar.get(Calendar.MONTH)

get the month of the currently set date in your calendar instance. Calendar.MONTH (which you accessed via the instance) is just a constant which tells the get() to return the month.

See JavaDoc for more information: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/util/Calendar.html