Comparing NSDates without time component

Question

In a swift playground, I have been using

NSDate.date() 

But, this always appears with the time element appended. For my app I need to ignore the time element. Is this possible in Swift? How can it be done? Even if I could set the time element to be the same time on every date that would work too.

Also, I am trying to compare two dates and at the moment I am using the following code:

var earlierDate:NSDate = firstDate.earlierDate(secondDate)

Is this the only way or can I do this in a way that ignores the time element? For instance I don't want a result if they are the same day, but different times.

Answer 1

Use this Calendar function to compare dates in iOS 8.0+

func compare(_ date1: Date, to date2: Date, toGranularity component: Calendar.Component) -> ComparisonResult

passing .day as the unit

Use this function as follows:

let now = Date()
// "Sep 23, 2015, 10:26 AM"
let olderDate = Date(timeIntervalSinceNow: -10000)
// "Sep 23, 2015, 7:40 AM"

var order = Calendar.current.compare(now, to: olderDate, toGranularity: .hour)

switch order {
case .orderedDescending:
    print("DESCENDING")
case .orderedAscending:
    print("ASCENDING")
case .orderedSame:
    print("SAME")
}

// Compare to hour: DESCENDING

var order = Calendar.current.compare(now, to: olderDate, toGranularity: .day)


switch order {
case .orderedDescending:
    print("DESCENDING")
case .orderedAscending:
    print("ASCENDING")
case .orderedSame:
    print("SAME")
}

// Compare to day: SAME