Time comparisons in swift

Question

Question:

I need to compare 2 times - the current time and a set one. If the set time is in the future, find out how many minutes remain until said future time.

Other Info:

I am currently using

let date = NSDate()
let calendar = NSCalendar.currentCalendar()
let components = calendar.components(.CalendarUnitHour | .CalendarUnitMinute, fromDate: date)
let hour = components.hour
let minutes = components.minute

which I stole from another answer on SO about how to get the current time in Int format. I then split the future time into hour (Int) and minutes(Int) and compare those... But that gets odd when you go over the hour barrier.

See...http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5965044/how-to-compare-two-nsdates-which-is-more-recent and the first comment on that question.. — Jack, Jun 19 '14 at 21:33

score 23 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 19 '14 at 21:34

You have compare function to compare 2 NSDate to know which one is more recent. It returns NSCompareResults

enum NSComparisonResult : Int {
    case OrderedAscending
    case OrderedSame
    case OrderedDescending
}

Get distance (in seconds) from 2 NSDate, you have .timeIntervalSinceDate(). Then, you know how to convert to minutes, hours, ...

let date1 : NSDate = ... 
let date2 : NSDate = ...

let compareResult = date1.compare(date2)

let interval = date1.timeIntervalSinceDate(date2)

Michael · Answer 2 · 2015-06-16T12:29:17.877

10

just to add to @tyt_g207's answer, I found the compare method, but hadn't found NSComparisonResult.OrderedDescending and the others. I used something like the modified below to check an expiration date against today's date

let date1 : NSDate = expirationDate 
let date2 : NSDate = NSDate() //initialized by default with the current date

let compareResult = date1.compare(date2)
if compareResult == NSComparisonResult.OrderedDescending {
    println("\(date1) is later than \(date2)")
}

let interval = date1.timeIntervalSinceDate(date2)

edited Jun 16 '15 at 12:29

answered Oct 29 '14 at 14:54

Michael

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Is this all in UTC? What about comparing local times ? – zulkarnain shah Mar 26 '17 at 03:43

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 04 '15 at 06:15

    let dateComparisionResult: NSComparisonResult = currentDate.compare("Your Date")


    if dateComparisionResult == NSComparisonResult.OrderedAscending
    {
        // Current date is smaller than end date.
    }
    else if dateComparisionResult == NSComparisonResult.OrderedDescending
    {
        // Current date is greater than end date.

    }
    else if dateComparisionResult == NSComparisonResult.OrderedSame
    {
        // Current date and end date are same.

    }

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 19 '14 at 21:34

4

Use timeIntervalSinceDate of date on further date and pass the earlier date as parameter, this would give the time difference

answered Jun 19 '14 at 21:34

nprd

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Time comparisons in swift

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