Number of days between two NSDates [duplicate]

Answer 1

Swift 3.0 Update

extension Date {

    func differenceInDaysWithDate(date: Date) -> Int {
        let calendar = Calendar.current

        let date1 = calendar.startOfDay(for: self)
        let date2 = calendar.startOfDay(for: date)

        let components = calendar.dateComponents([.day], from: date1, to: date2)
        return components.day ?? 0
    }
}

Swift 2.0 Update

extension NSDate {

    func differenceInDaysWithDate(date: NSDate) -> Int {
        let calendar: NSCalendar = NSCalendar.currentCalendar()

        let date1 = calendar.startOfDayForDate(self)
        let date2 = calendar.startOfDayForDate(date)

        let components = calendar.components(.Day, fromDate: date1, toDate: date2, options: [])
        return components.day
    }

}

Original Solution

Another solution in Swift.

If your purpose is to get the exact day number between two dates, you can work around this issue like this:

// Assuming that firstDate and secondDate are defined
// ...

var calendar: NSCalendar = NSCalendar.currentCalendar()

// Replace the hour (time) of both dates with 00:00
let date1 = calendar.startOfDayForDate(firstDate)
let date2 = calendar.startOfDayForDate(secondDate)

let flags = NSCalendarUnit.DayCalendarUnit
let components = calendar.components(flags, fromDate: date1, toDate: date2, options: nil)

components.day  // This will return the number of day(s) between dates

Answer 2

Do you mean calendar days or 24-hour periods? i.e. is Tuesday at 9PM a day before Wednesday at 6AM, or less than one day?

If you mean the former, it's a bit complicated and you'll have to resort to manipulations via NSCalendar and NSDateComponent which I don't recall off the top of my head.

If you mean the latter, just get the dates' time intervals since the reference date, subtract one from the other, and divide by 24 hours (24 * 60 * 60) to get the approximate interval, leap seconds not included.

Answer 3

Here is an implementation of Brian's function in Swift:

class func daysBetweenThisDate(fromDateTime:NSDate, andThisDate toDateTime:NSDate)->Int?{

    var fromDate:NSDate? = nil
    var toDate:NSDate? = nil

    let calendar = NSCalendar.currentCalendar()

    calendar.rangeOfUnit(NSCalendarUnit.DayCalendarUnit, startDate: &fromDate, interval: nil, forDate: fromDateTime)

    calendar.rangeOfUnit(NSCalendarUnit.DayCalendarUnit, startDate: &toDate, interval: nil, forDate: toDateTime)

    if let from = fromDate {

        if let to = toDate {

            let difference = calendar.components(NSCalendarUnit.DayCalendarUnit, fromDate: from, toDate: to, options: NSCalendarOptions.allZeros)

            return difference.day
        }
    }

    return nil
}

Answer 4

The solution I found was:

+(NSInteger)getDaysDifferenceBetween:(NSDate *)dateA and:(NSDate *)dateB {

  if ([dateA isEqualToDate:dateB]) 
    return 0;

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



  NSDate * dateToRound = [dateA earlierDate:dateB];
  int flags = (NSYearCalendarUnit | NSMonthCalendarUnit |  NSDayCalendarUnit);
  NSDateComponents * dateComponents = 
         [gregorian components:flags fromDate:dateToRound];


  NSDate * roundedDate = [gregorian dateFromComponents:dateComponents];

  NSDate * otherDate = (dateToRound == dateA) ? dateB : dateA ;

  NSInteger diff = abs([roundedDate timeIntervalSinceDate:otherDate]);

  NSInteger daysDifference = floor(diff/(24 * 60 * 60));

  return daysDifference;
}

Here I am effectively rounding the first date to start from the beginning of the day and then calculating the difference as Jonathan is suggesting above...