How to do date/time comparison

Question

Is there any options in doing date comparison in Go? I have to sort data based on date and time - independently. So I might allow an object that occurs within a range of dates so long as it also occurs within a range of times. In this model, I could not simply just select the oldest date, youngest time/latest date, latest time and Unix() seconds compare them. I'd really appreciate any suggestions.

Ultimately, I wrote a time parsing string compare module to check if a time is within a range. However, this is not faring to well; I've got some gaping issues. I'll post that here just for fun, but I'm hoping there's a better way to time compare.

package main

import (
    "strconv"
    "strings"
)

func tryIndex(arr []string, index int, def string) string {
    if index <= len(arr)-1 {
        return arr[index]
    }
    return def
}

/*
 * Takes two strings of format "hh:mm:ss" and compares them.
 * Takes a function to compare individual sections (split by ":").
 * Note: strings can actually be formatted like "h", "hh", "hh:m",
 * "hh:mm", etc. Any missing parts will be added lazily.
 */
func timeCompare(a, b string, compare func(int, int) (bool, bool)) bool {
    aArr := strings.Split(a, ":")
    bArr := strings.Split(b, ":")
    // Catches margins.
    if (b == a) {
        return true
    }
    for i := range aArr {
        aI, _ := strconv.Atoi(tryIndex(aArr, i, "00"))
        bI, _ := strconv.Atoi(tryIndex(bArr, i, "00"))
        res, flag := compare(aI, bI)
        if res {
            return true
        } else if flag { // Needed to catch case where a > b and a is the lower limit
            return false
        }
    }
    return false
}

func timeGreaterEqual(a, b int) (bool, bool) {return a > b, a < b}
func timeLesserEqual(a, b int) (bool, bool) {return a < b, a > b}

/*
 * Returns true for two strings formmated "hh:mm:ss".
 * Note: strings can actually be formatted like "h", "hh", "hh:m",
 * "hh:mm", etc. Any missing parts will be added lazily.
 */
func withinTime(timeRange, time string) bool {
    rArr := strings.Split(timeRange, "-")
    if timeCompare(rArr[0], rArr[1], timeLesserEqual) {
        afterStart := timeCompare(rArr[0], time, timeLesserEqual)
        beforeEnd := timeCompare(rArr[1], time, timeGreaterEqual)
        return afterStart && beforeEnd
    }
    // Catch things like `timeRange := "22:00:00-04:59:59"` which will happen
    // with UTC conversions from local time.
    // THIS IS THE BROKEN PART I BELIEVE
    afterStart := timeCompare(rArr[0], time, timeLesserEqual)
    beforeEnd := timeCompare(rArr[1], time, timeGreaterEqual)
    return afterStart || beforeEnd
}

So TLDR, I wrote a withinTimeRange(range, time) function but it's not working totally correctly. (In fact, mostly just the second case, where a time range crosses over days is broken. The original part worked, I just realized I'd need to account for that when making conversions to UTC from local.)

If there's a better (preferably built in) way, I'd love to hear about it!

NOTE: Just as an example, I solved this issue in Javascript with this function:

function withinTime(start, end, time) {
    var s = Date.parse("01/01/2011 "+start);
    var e = Date.parse("01/0"+(end=="24:00:00"?"2":"1")+"/2011 "+(end=="24:00:00"?"00:00:00":end));
    var t = Date.parse("01/01/2011 "+time);
    return s <= t && e >= t;
}

However I really want to do this filter server-side.

Answer 1

Use the time package to work with time information in Go.

Time instants can be compared using the Before, After, and Equal methods. The Sub method subtracts two instants, producing a Duration. The Add method adds a Time and a Duration, producing a Time.

Play example:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "time"
)

func inTimeSpan(start, end, check time.Time) bool {
    return check.After(start) && check.Before(end)
}

func main() {
    start, _ := time.Parse(time.RFC822, "01 Jan 15 10:00 UTC")
    end, _ := time.Parse(time.RFC822, "01 Jan 16 10:00 UTC")

    in, _ := time.Parse(time.RFC822, "01 Jan 15 20:00 UTC")
    out, _ := time.Parse(time.RFC822, "01 Jan 17 10:00 UTC")

    if inTimeSpan(start, end, in) {
        fmt.Println(in, "is between", start, "and", end, ".")
    }

    if !inTimeSpan(start, end, out) {
        fmt.Println(out, "is not between", start, "and", end, ".")
    }
}