iOS: Compare two dates

According to Apple documentation of NSDate compare:

Returns an NSComparisonResult value that indicates the temporal ordering of the receiver and another given date.

- (NSComparisonResult)compare:(NSDate *)anotherDate

Parameters anotherDate

The date with which to compare the receiver. This value must not be nil. If the value is nil, the behavior is undefined and may change in future versions of Mac OS X.

Return Value

If:

The receiver and anotherDate are exactly equal to each other, NSOrderedSame

The receiver is later in time than anotherDate, NSOrderedDescending

The receiver is earlier in time than anotherDate, NSOrderedAscending

In other words:

if ([date1 compare:date2] == NSOrderedSame) ...

Note that it might be easier in your particular case to read and write this :

if ([date2 isEqualToDate:date2]) ...

See Apple Documentation about this one.

After searching, I've got to conclusion that the best way of doing it is like this:

- (BOOL)isEndDateIsSmallerThanCurrent:(NSDate *)checkEndDate{    NSDate* enddate = checkEndDate;    NSDate* currentdate = [NSDate date];    NSTimeInterval distanceBetweenDates = [enddate timeIntervalSinceDate:currentdate];    double secondsInMinute = 60;    NSInteger secondsBetweenDates = distanceBetweenDates / secondsInMinute;    if (secondsBetweenDates == 0)        return YES;    else if (secondsBetweenDates < 0)        return YES;    else        return NO;}

You can change it to difference between hours also.

If you want to compare date with format of dd/MM/yyyy only, you need to add below lines between NSDate* currentdate = [NSDate date]; && NSTimeInterval distance

NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"dd/MM/yyyy"];[dateFormatter setLocale:[[[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:@"en_US"]                          autorelease]];NSString *stringDate = [dateFormatter stringFromDate:[NSDate date]];currentdate = [dateFormatter dateFromString:stringDate];

I take it you are asking what the return value is in the comparison function.

If the dates are equal then returning NSOrderedSame

If ascending ( 2nd arg > 1st arg ) return NSOrderedAscending

If descending ( 2nd arg < 1st arg ) return NSOrderedDescending