Searching the datastore using date-based entity properties can often be confusing to new App Engine developers. Here’s how to search for all recently created entities.
First, each entity has to record the time it was created. Add the following line of code when constructing your entities (entity represents the Entity object being created):
entity.setProperty("add_date", new Date());//Records the date this entity was added.
Here’s the code for the query. This code example searches for all entities created within the last 24 hours with a kind of mail. The resulting entities are placed into the variable results (which is a standard java.util.List object).
/**
* Creates a Date object that represents a point in time
* 24 hours ago.
*/
Date current_date = new Date();//The current date.
long current_date_in_ms = current_date.getTime();//The current date in milliseconds.
//Take the current date in milliseconds, and subtract 24 hours worth
//of milliseconds (1000 milliseconds per second, times 60 seconds per
//minute, times 60 minutes per hour, times 24 hours in a day).
long one_day_ago_in_ms = current_date_in_ms - (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24);
Date one_day_ago = new Date(one_day_ago_in_ms);//Create a new Date object representing one day ago.
//Search all entities with the kind "mail".
//We create a Filter that requires that the add_date property be greater
//than the Date we computed above.
Query q = new Query("mail");
Query.Filter date_filter = new Query.FilterPredicate("add_date", Query.FilterOperator.GREATER_THAN_OR_EQUAL, one_day_ago);
q.setFilter(date_filter);
PreparedQuery pq = DatastoreServiceFactory.getDatastoreService().prepare(q);
List<Entity> results = pq.asList(FetchOptions.Builder.withDefaults());