java 42 lines · 7 steps

Adding ISO-8601 durations across time zones in Java

A calculator that adds an ISO-8601 duration to an instant, handling calendar units through a zone so DST and month lengths stay correct.

Explained by highlit

Intermediate date-time iso-8601 parsing time-zones immutability

1package com.example.time;
2 
3import java.time.Duration;
4import java.time.Instant;
5import java.time.LocalDateTime;
6import java.time.Period;
7import java.time.ZoneId;
8import java.time.format.DateTimeParseException;
9 
10public final class DurationOffsetCalculator {
11 
12    private final ZoneId zone;
13 
14    public DurationOffsetCalculator(ZoneId zone) {
15        this.zone = zone;
16    }
17 
18    public Instant addIso8601(Instant start, String iso8601) {
19        if (iso8601 == null || iso8601.isBlank()) {
20            throw new IllegalArgumentException("duration must not be blank");
21        }
22 
23        int timeIndex = iso8601.indexOf('T');
24        String datePart = timeIndex < 0 ? iso8601 : iso8601.substring(0, timeIndex);
25        boolean hasCalendarUnits = datePart.length() > 1 || datePart.contains("Y") || datePart.contains("M") || datePart.contains("W") || datePart.contains("D");
26 
27        try {
28            if (hasCalendarUnits) {
29                Period period = Period.parse(timeIndex < 0 ? iso8601 : datePart);
30                Duration time = timeIndex < 0 ? Duration.ZERO : Duration.parse("P" + iso8601.substring(timeIndex));
31                return LocalDateTime.ofInstant(start, zone)
32                        .plus(period)
33                        .plus(time)
34                        .atZone(zone)
35                        .toInstant();
36            }
37            return start.plus(Duration.parse(iso8601));
38        } catch (DateTimeParseException e) {
39            throw new IllegalArgumentException("invalid ISO-8601 duration: " + iso8601, e);
40        }
41    }
42}

01 / 01

STEP 01

Walkthrough

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Three takeaways

1Calendar units like months and days are zone-dependent, so they must be applied through a LocalDateTime rather than a fixed-length Duration.
2Splitting an ISO-8601 string at 'T' lets you route the date part to Period and the time part to Duration, which parse different halves.
3Wrapping parse calls to rethrow a domain-specific exception gives callers a clear, uniform failure contract.

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