Date Time difference in minutes in ios

Question

i am using following method to get date time difference in minutes it giving me negative value .

I am using following code :

NSCalendar *gregorian = [[NSCalendar alloc]
                         initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSCalendarIdentifierGregorian];

NSUInteger unitFlags = NSCalendarUnitMonth | NSCalendarUnitDay | NSCalendarUnitMinute;

NSDateComponents *components = [gregorian components:unitFlags
                                            fromDate:dt2
                                              toDate:dt1 options:0];
NSInteger months = [components month];
NSInteger days = [components day];
NSInteger minutes = [components minute];

NSLog(@"months %ld",(long)months);
NSLog(@"days %ld",(long)days);
NSLog(@"minutes %ld",(long)minutes);

int res = (int)minutes;
NSLog(@"int minutes %d",res);

return res;

I want to calculate difference between these two below date in minutes:

• date1:2016-11-23 07:39:44 +0000
• date2:2016-11-23 08:13:44 +0000

As a result I'm getting -34.

Answer 1

You need to replace with this :

NSDateComponents *components = [gregorian components:unitFlags
                                            fromDate:dt1
                                              toDate:dt2 options:0];

Answer 2

fromDate will contain an earlier date and toDate will contains later date in NSDateComponents you are passing it wrongly change this

NSDateComponents *components = [gregorian components:unitFlags
                                            fromDate:dt2
                                              toDate:dt1 options:0];

to this

NSDateComponents *components = [gregorian components:unitFlags
                                            fromDate:dt1
                                              toDate:dt2 options:0];

Answer 3

If you don't know which date is former, just return absolute value of difference. That will always give you positive value.

return abs(res);