javatimetemporal

javatimetemporal is the package in Java's standard library that provides the core abstractions for working with date and time in a calendar- and chronology-aware way. It forms the foundation of the java.time framework introduced in Java 8 and defines the interfaces, enums, and helper types used to represent, query, and manipulate temporal values in a uniform manner.

The central concepts in the package are Temporal, TemporalAccessor, TemporalAdjuster, TemporalUnit, and TemporalField. Temporal is the main interface for objects that can be adjusted or manipulated over time, offering operations such as plus, minus, and adjustInto, as well as methods to query field values. TemporalAccessor is a read-only view for accessing temporal fields without committing to a particular mutable type. TemporalAdjuster is a strategy for computing a new temporal value from an existing one, with TemporalAdjusters providing common implementations like firstDayOfMonth or nextOrSame, among others. TemporalQuery enables custom queries against temporal objects.

TemporalUnit defines units of time for arithmetic, with ChronoUnit as a standard enum implementing this interface (for example, DAYS, HOURS, MINUTES, SECONDS). TemporalField represents fields that can be read or set on temporal objects, with ChronoField as a widely used enum (YEAR, MONTH_OF_YEAR, DAY_OF_MONTH, HOUR_OF_DAY, etc.). The package also encompasses related exception types such as DateTimeException for error handling.

Concrete temporal classes in the Java time API, including LocalDate, LocalTime, LocalDateTime, OffsetDateTime, ZonedDateTime, and Instant, implement these interfaces and interact through the temporal framework. This design enables generic, type-safe date-time operations across different temporal representations while maintaining a clear separation between temporal data and its operations.

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