NSDate past 4pm - ios

Question

Hello I have seen many NSDate comparisons on this site
but they all seems to be very complicated , since I need only to know
if the date now is past 4pm or before 4pm
maybe there is some easy way to achieve this goal ?
[link] (Check if the time and date is between a particular date and time)
but it seems very long and complicated I just need simple bool answer past 4pm or not
- (BOOL)checkTime
{
NSDate* now = [NSDate date];
NSDate *endDate;
[formatter setDateFormat:#"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"];
endDate = [formatter dateFromString:#"2012-12-07 16:00:00"];//well here I have a problem how do I set end day to today 4pm ?
NSLog(#"%d",[now compare:endDate]);
if([now compare:endDate] < 0)
return YES;
else if([now compare:endDate] > 0)
return NO;
else
return NO;
}
EDIT: After the answers I came up with this code
- (BOOL)checkTime
{
NSDate *date = [NSDate date];
NSDateFormatter *df = [NSDateFormatter new];
[df setDateFormat:#"HH"];
int intS =9;
NSInteger HourStart = intS;
NSInteger hour = [[df stringFromDate:date] integerValue];
int hourE = 16;
NSInteger HourEnd = hourE;
if((hour >HourStart) && (hour < HourEnd))
return YES;
else
return NO;
}
For now it is works fine , but I am not sure it will work on another calendars set etc.

Answer 1

In general, I'd prefer to use NSDateComponents and NSCalendar for these sorts of calendrical calculations, since you don't know what calendar the user is using.
Here's a method for doing the comparison in a category on NSDate using date components:
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#interface NSDate (Foo)
- (BOOL)isAfterFourPM;
#end
#implementation NSDate (Foo)
- (BOOL)isAfterFourPM {
unsigned int flags = NSHourCalendarUnit;
NSDateComponents *comps = [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] components:flags fromDate:self];
return (comps.hour >= 16);
}
#end
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
#autoreleasepool {
NSDate *now = [NSDate date];
NSLog(#"is after 4 PM? - %#",([now isAfterFourPM]?#"YES":#"NO"));
// let's try with a different time (17h)
unsigned int flags = NSYearCalendarUnit | NSMonthCalendarUnit | NSDayCalendarUnit;
flags |= NSHourCalendarUnit;
NSDateComponents *currentComps = [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] components:flags fromDate:now];
currentComps.hour = 17;
NSDate *afterFourDate = [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] dateFromComponents:currentComps];
NSLog(#"is after 4 PM? - %#",([afterFourDate isAfterFourPM]?#"YES":#"NO"));
}
}
This prints:
2013-12-10 05:16:05.921 Untitled 2[43453:507] is after 4 PM? - NO
2013-12-10 05:16:05.921 Untitled 2[43453:507] is after 4 PM? - YES
(at ~ 5 AM Central time)
In this case, all you need to do, is get the NSHourCalendarUnit component from the date using the current calendar and compare the hour property on NSDateComponents to 16.

Answer 2

The following will give you hour:
NSDate *now = [NSDate date];
NSDateFormatter *df = [NSDateFormatter new];
[df setDateFormat:#"hh"];
NSInteger hour = [[df stringFromDate:now] integerValue];
NOTE:
If you want to check only for 4 then use hh, if for 16 then use HH.
Or in simple words HH for 24 hour format.