Swift 3 - Comparing Date objects

I have tried this snippet (in Xcode 8 Beta 6), and it is working fine.

let date1 = Date()
let date2 = Date().addingTimeInterval(100)

if date1 == date2 { ... }
else if date1 > date2 { ... }
else if date1 < date2 { ... }

Date is Comparable & Equatable (as of Swift 3)

This answer complements @Ankit Thakur's answer.

Since Swift 3 the Date struct (based on the underlying NSDate class) adopts the Comparable and Equatable protocols.

• Comparable requires that Date implement the operators: <, <=, >, >=.
• Equatable requires that Date implement the == operator.
• Equatable allows Date to use the default implementation of the != operator (which is the inverse of the Equatable == operator implementation).

The following sample code exercises these comparison operators and confirms which comparisons are true with print statements.

Comparison function

import Foundation

func describeComparison(date1: Date, date2: Date) -> String {

    var descriptionArray: [String] = []

    if date1 < date2 {
        descriptionArray.append("date1 < date2")
    }

    if date1 <= date2 {
        descriptionArray.append("date1 <= date2")
    }

    if date1 > date2 {
        descriptionArray.append("date1 > date2")
    }

    if date1 >= date2 {
        descriptionArray.append("date1 >= date2")
    }

    if date1 == date2 {
        descriptionArray.append("date1 == date2")
    }

    if date1 != date2 {
        descriptionArray.append("date1 != date2")
    }

    return descriptionArray.joined(separator: ",  ")
}

Sample Use

let now = Date()

describeComparison(date1: now, date2: now.addingTimeInterval(1))
// date1 < date2,  date1 <= date2,  date1 != date2

describeComparison(date1: now, date2: now.addingTimeInterval(-1))
// date1 > date2,  date1 >= date2,  date1 != date2

describeComparison(date1: now, date2: now)
// date1 <= date2,  date1 >= date2,  date1 == date2