Comparing the time of two NSDates, ignoring the date component

Question

I want to compare two NSDates with NOW ([NSDate date]).

NSDate *date1 = [NSDate dateWithString:@\"1982-02-12 07:00:00 +0100\"];
NSDate *now   = [NSDate dateW         


        

Answer 1

    NSDateFormatter* formatterDate = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] autorelease]; 

    formatterDate.dateStyle = NSDateFormatterMediumStyle;  // whatever format you like  

    NSDate *first_Date  = [formatterDate dateFromString:@""];
    NSDate  *second_Date  = [formatterDate dateFromString:@""];
    NSDate  *todaysDate =  [NSDate date];


    NSTimeInterval timeIntFormFirstDate = [todaysDate timeIntervalSinceDate:First_Date];
    NSTimeInterval timeIntFronLastDate  = [second_Date timeIntervalSinceDate:todaysDate];

    int interval1 = timeIntFormFirstDate/60;
    int interval2 = timeIntFronLastDate/60;

    if (interval1 >0 && interval2 >0)
    {
        NSLog(@"Today's date is between first and second date");
    }

Answer 2

unsigned int flags = NSCalendarUnitHour | NSCalendarUnitMinute | NSCalendarUnitSecond;
NSCalendar* calendar = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];

NSDateComponents* components = [calendar components:flags fromDate:date1];

NSDate* timeOnly = [calendar dateFromComponents:components];

This will give you a date object where everything but the hours/minutes/seconds have been reset to some common value. Then you can use the standard NSDate compare functions on them.

For reference, here is the opposite question to yours: Comparing two NSDates and ignoring the time component

Answer 3

You can create a date representing the start of today and add the time as components to it to get the boundary dates.

NSDate *now = [NSDate date];
NSDate *startOfToday;
[[NSCalendar currentCalendar] rangeOfUnit:NSDayCalendarUnit startDate:&startOfToday interval:NULL forDate:now];


NSDateComponents *startComps = [[NSDateComponents alloc] init];
startComps.hour = 7;
startComps.minute = 30;

NSDateComponents *endComps = [[NSDateComponents alloc] init];
endComps.hour = 20;

NSDate *startDate =  [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] dateByAddingComponents:startComps toDate:startOfToday options:0];
NSDate *endDate =  [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] dateByAddingComponents:endComps toDate:startOfToday options:0];

if ([startDate timeIntervalSince1970] < [now timeIntervalSince1970] && [now timeIntervalSince1970]  < [endDate timeIntervalSince1970]) {
    NSLog(@"good");
}