Get the current date.

LocalDate.now()

Get yesterday's date.

LocalDate y = LocalDate.now().minusDays(1);

Get tomorrow's date

LocalDate t = LocalDate.now().plusDays(1);

Get a specific date.

LocalDate t = LocalDate.of(1974, 6, 2, 8, 30, 0, 0);

In addition to the plus and minus methods, there are a set of "with" methods that can be used to set a particular field on a LocalDate instance.

LocalDate.now().withMonth(6);

The example above returns a new instance with the month set to June (this differs from java.util.Date where setMonth was indexed a 0 making June 5).

Because LocalDate manipulations return immutable LocalDate instances, these methods may also be chained together.

LocalDate ld = LocalDate.now().plusDays(1).plusYears(1);

This would give us tomorrow's date one year from now.

Date and time without time zone information

LocalDateTime dateTime = LocalDateTime.of(2016, Month.JULY, 27, 8, 0);
LocalDateTime now = LocalDateTime.now();
LocalDateTime parsed = LocalDateTime.parse("2016-07-27T07:00:00");

Date and time with time zone information

ZoneId zoneId = ZoneId.of("UTC+2");
ZonedDateTime dateTime = ZonedDateTime.of(2016, Month.JULY, 27, 7, 0, 0, 235, zoneId);
ZonedDateTime composition = ZonedDateTime.of(localDate, localTime, zoneId);
ZonedDateTime now = ZonedDateTime.now(); // Default time zone
ZonedDateTime parsed = ZonedDateTime.parse("2016-07-27T07:00:00+01:00[Europe/Stockholm]");

Date and time with offset information (i.e. no DST changes taken into account)

ZoneOffset zoneOffset = ZoneOffset.ofHours(2);
OffsetDateTime dateTime = OffsetDateTime.of(2016, 7, 27, 7, 0, 0, 235, zoneOffset);
OffsetDateTime composition = OffsetDateTime.of(localDate, localTime, zoneOffset);
OffsetDateTime now = OffsetDateTime.now(); // Offset taken from the default ZoneId
OffsetDateTime parsed = OffsetDateTime.parse("2016-07-27T07:00:00+02:00");

LocalDate tomorrow = LocalDate.now().plusDays(1);
LocalDateTime anHourFromNow = LocalDateTime.now().plusHours(1);
Long daysBetween = java.time.temporal.ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(LocalDate.now(), LocalDate.now().plusDays(3)); // 3
Duration duration = Duration.between(Instant.now(), ZonedDateTime.parse("2016-07-27T07:00:00+01:00[Europe/Stockholm]"))

Represents an instant in time. Can be thought of as a wrapper around a Unix timestamp.

Instant now = Instant.now();
Instant epoch1 = Instant.ofEpochMilli(0);
Instant epoch2 = Instant.parse("1970-01-01T00:00:00Z");
java.time.temporal.ChronoUnit.MICROS.between(epoch1, epoch2); // 0

Following example also have explanation required for understanding example within it.

import java.time.Clock;
import java.time.Duration;
import java.time.Instant;
import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.LocalTime;
import java.time.ZoneId;
import java.time.ZonedDateTime;
import java.util.TimeZone;
public class SomeMethodsExamples {

/**
 * Has the methods of the class {@link LocalDateTime}
 */
public static void checkLocalDateTime() {
    LocalDateTime localDateTime = LocalDateTime.now();
    System.out.println("Local Date time using static now() method ::: >>> "
            + localDateTime);

    LocalDateTime ldt1 = LocalDateTime.now(ZoneId.of(ZoneId.SHORT_IDS
            .get("AET")));
    System.out
            .println("LOCAL TIME USING now(ZoneId zoneId) method ::: >>>>"
                    + ldt1);

    LocalDateTime ldt2 = LocalDateTime.now(Clock.system(ZoneId
            .of(ZoneId.SHORT_IDS.get("PST"))));
    System.out
            .println("Local TIME USING now(Clock.system(ZoneId.of())) ::: >>>> "
                    + ldt2);

    System.out
            .println("Following is a static map in ZoneId class which has mapping of short timezone names to their Actual timezone names");
    System.out.println(ZoneId.SHORT_IDS);

}

/**
 * This has the methods of the class {@link LocalDate}
 */
public static void checkLocalDate() {
    LocalDate localDate = LocalDate.now();
    System.out.println("Gives date without Time using now() method. >> "
            + localDate);
    LocalDate localDate2 = LocalDate.now(ZoneId.of(ZoneId.SHORT_IDS
            .get("ECT")));
    System.out
            .println("now() is overridden to take ZoneID as parametere using this we can get the same date under different timezones. >> "
                    + localDate2);
}

/**
 * This has the methods of abstract class {@link Clock}. Clock can be used
 * for time which has time with {@link TimeZone}.
 */
public static void checkClock() {
    Clock clock = Clock.systemUTC();
    // Represents time according to ISO 8601
    System.out.println("Time using Clock class : " + clock.instant());
}

/**
 * This has the {@link Instant} class methods.
 */
public static void checkInstant() {
    Instant instant = Instant.now();

    System.out.println("Instant using now() method :: " + instant);

    Instant ins1 = Instant.now(Clock.systemUTC());

    System.out.println("Instants using now(Clock clock) :: " + ins1);

}

/**
 * This class checks the methods of the {@link Duration} class.
 */
public static void checkDuration() {
    // toString() converts the duration to PTnHnMnS format according to ISO
    // 8601 standard. If a field is zero its ignored.

    // P is the duration designator (historically called "period") placed at
    // the start of the duration representation.
    // Y is the year designator that follows the value for the number of
    // years.
    // M is the month designator that follows the value for the number of
    // months.
    // W is the week designator that follows the value for the number of
    // weeks.
    // D is the day designator that follows the value for the number of
    // days.
    // T is the time designator that precedes the time components of the
    // representation.
    // H is the hour designator that follows the value for the number of
    // hours.
    // M is the minute designator that follows the value for the number of
    // minutes.
    // S is the second designator that follows the value for the number of
    // seconds.

    System.out.println(Duration.ofDays(2));
}

/**
 * Shows Local time without date. It doesn't store or represenet a date and
 * time. Instead its a representation of Time like clock on the wall.
 */
public static void checkLocalTime() {
    LocalTime localTime = LocalTime.now();
    System.out.println("LocalTime :: " + localTime);
}

/**
 * A date time with Time zone details in ISO-8601 standards.
 */
public static void checkZonedDateTime() {
    ZonedDateTime zonedDateTime = ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId
            .of(ZoneId.SHORT_IDS.get("CST")));
    System.out.println(zonedDateTime);

}
}

Before Java 8, there was DateFormat and SimpleDateFormat classes in the package java.text and this legacy code will be continued to be used for sometime.

But, Java 8 offers a modern approach to handling Formatting and Parsing.

In formatting and parsing first you pass a String object to DateTimeFormatter, and in turn use it for formatting or parsing.

import java.time.*;
import java.time.format.*;

class DateTimeFormat
{
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        //Parsing
        String pattern = "d-MM-yyyy HH:mm";
        DateTimeFormatter dtF1 = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern(pattern);

        LocalDateTime ldp1 = LocalDateTime.parse("2014-03-25T01:30"), //Default format
                      ldp2 = LocalDateTime.parse("15-05-2016 13:55",dtF1); //Custom format

        System.out.println(ldp1 + "\n" + ldp2); //Will be printed in Default format

        //Formatting
        DateTimeFormatter dtF2 = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("EEE d, MMMM, yyyy HH:mm");
        
        DateTimeFormatter dtF3 = DateTimeFormatter.ISO_LOCAL_DATE_TIME;

        LocalDateTime ldtf1 = LocalDateTime.now();

        System.out.println(ldtf1.format(dtF2) +"\n"+ldtf1.format(dtF3));
    }
}

An important notice, instead of using Custom patterns, it is good practice to use predefined formatters. Your code look more clear and usage of ISO8061 will definitely help you in the long run.

Use LocalDate and ChronoUnit:

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

now, since the method between of the ChronoUnit enumerator takes 2 Temporals as parameters so you can pass without a problem the LocalDate instances

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