Number of days between two NSDates [duplicate]

Answer 1

I have published an open-source class/library to do just this.

Have a look at RelativeDateDescriptor, which can be used to obtain the time difference as follows...

RelativeDateDescriptor *descriptor = [[RelativeDateDescriptor alloc] initWithPriorDateDescriptionFormat:@"%@ ago" postDateDescriptionFormat:@"in %@"];

// date1: 1st January 2000, 00:00:00
// date2: 6th January 2000, 00:00:00
[descriptor describeDate:date2 relativeTo:date1]; // Returns '5 days ago'
[descriptor describeDate:date1 relativeTo:date2]; // Returns 'in 5 days'

Answer 2

Here's an implementation I used to determine the number of calendar days between two dates:

+ (NSInteger)daysBetweenDate:(NSDate*)fromDateTime andDate:(NSDate*)toDateTime
{
    NSDate *fromDate;
    NSDate *toDate;

    NSCalendar *calendar = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];

    [calendar rangeOfUnit:NSCalendarUnitDay startDate:&fromDate
        interval:NULL forDate:fromDateTime];
    [calendar rangeOfUnit:NSCalendarUnitDay startDate:&toDate
        interval:NULL forDate:toDateTime];

    NSDateComponents *difference = [calendar components:NSCalendarUnitDay
        fromDate:fromDate toDate:toDate options:0];

    return [difference day];
}

EDIT:

Fantastic solution above, here's Swift version below as an extension on NSDate:

extension NSDate {
  func numberOfDaysUntilDateTime(toDateTime: NSDate, inTimeZone timeZone: NSTimeZone? = nil) -> Int {
    let calendar = NSCalendar.currentCalendar()
    if let timeZone = timeZone {
      calendar.timeZone = timeZone
    }

    var fromDate: NSDate?, toDate: NSDate?

    calendar.rangeOfUnit(.Day, startDate: &fromDate, interval: nil, forDate: self)
    calendar.rangeOfUnit(.Day, startDate: &toDate, interval: nil, forDate: toDateTime)

    let difference = calendar.components(.Day, fromDate: fromDate!, toDate: toDate!, options: [])
    return difference.day
  }
}

A bit of force unwrapping going on which you may want to remove depending on your use case.

The above solution also works for time zones other than the current time zone, perfect for an app that shows information about places all around the world.

Answer 3

@Brian

Brian's answer while good, only calculates difference in days in terms of 24h chunks, but not calendar day differences. For example 23:59 on Dec 24th is only 1 minute away from Christmas Day, for the purpose of many application that is considered one day still. Brian's daysBetween function would return 0.

Borrowing from Brian's original implementation and beginning/end of day, I use the following in my program: (NSDate beginning of day and end of day)

- (NSDate *)beginningOfDay:(NSDate *)date
{
    NSCalendar *cal = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];
    NSDateComponents *components = [cal components:( NSDayCalendarUnit | NSMonthCalendarUnit | NSYearCalendarUnit | NSHourCalendarUnit | NSMinuteCalendarUnit | NSSecondCalendarUnit ) fromDate:date];
    [components setHour:0];
    [components setMinute:0];
    [components setSecond:0];
    return [cal dateFromComponents:components];
}

- (NSDate *)endOfDay:(NSDate *)date
{
    NSCalendar *cal = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];
    NSDateComponents *components = [cal components:( NSDayCalendarUnit | NSMonthCalendarUnit | NSYearCalendarUnit | NSHourCalendarUnit | NSMinuteCalendarUnit | NSSecondCalendarUnit ) fromDate:date];
    [components setHour:23];
    [components setMinute:59];
    [components setSecond:59];
    return [cal dateFromComponents:components];
}

- (int)daysBetween:(NSDate *)date1 and:(NSDate *)date2 {
    NSDate *beginningOfDate1 = [self beginningOfDay:date1];
    NSDate *endOfDate1 = [self endOfDay:date1];
    NSCalendar *calendar = [[NSCalendar alloc] initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSGregorianCalendar];
    NSDateComponents *beginningDayDiff = [calendar components:NSDayCalendarUnit fromDate:beginningOfDate1 toDate:date2 options:0];
    NSDateComponents *endDayDiff = [calendar components:NSDayCalendarUnit fromDate:endOfDate1 toDate:date2 options:0];
    if (beginningDayDiff.day > 0)
        return beginningDayDiff.day;
    else if (endDayDiff.day < 0)
        return endDayDiff.day;
    else {
        return 0;
    }
}

Answer 4

Another approach:

NSDateFormatter* dayFmt = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[dayFmt setTimeZone:<whatever time zone you want>];
[dayFmt setDateFormat:@"g"];
NSInteger firstDay = [[dayFmt stringFromDate:firstDate] integerValue];    
NSInteger secondDay = [[dayFmt stringFromDate:secondDate] integerValue];
NSInteger difference = secondDay - firstDay;

Has the advantage over the timeIntervalSince... scheme that timezone can be taken into account, and there's no ambiguity with intervals a few seconds short or long of one day.

And a bit more compact and less confusing than the NSDateComponents approaches.

Answer 5

I use this as category method for NSDate class

// returns number of days (absolute value) from another date (as number of midnights beween these dates)
- (int)daysFromDate:(NSDate *)pDate {
    NSCalendar *calendar = [[NSCalendar alloc] initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSCalendarIdentifierGregorian];
    NSInteger startDay=[calendar ordinalityOfUnit:NSCalendarUnitDay
                                           inUnit:NSCalendarUnitEra
                                          forDate:[NSDate date]];
    NSInteger endDay=[calendar ordinalityOfUnit:NSCalendarUnitDay
                                         inUnit:NSCalendarUnitEra
                                        forDate:pDate];
    return abs(endDay-startDay);
}

Answer 6

Just adding an answer for those who visit this page trying to do this in Swift. The approach is pretty much the same.

private class func getDaysBetweenDates(startDate:NSDate, endDate:NSDate) -> NSInteger {

    var gregorian: NSCalendar = NSCalendar.currentCalendar();
    let flags = NSCalendarUnit.DayCalendarUnit
    let components = gregorian.components(flags, fromDate: startDate, toDate: endDate, options: nil)

    return components.day
}

This answer was found here, in the discussion section of the following method:

components(_:fromDate:toDate:options:)