get NSDate today, yesterday, this Week, last Week, this Month, last Month... variables

Question

I am trying to do is to get NSDate today, yesterday, this Week, last Week, this Month, last Month variables ready for comparison for headers to be added on UITableView's titleForHeaderInSection

What I want is done manually in the code below for date 2009-12-11

 NSDate *today = [NSDate dateWithString:@"2009-12-11 00:00:00 +0000"];
 NSDate *yesterday = [NSDate dateWithString:@"2009-12-10 00:00:00 +0000"];
 NSDate *thisWeek = [NSDate dateWithString:@"2009-12-06 00:00:00 +0000"];
 NSDate *lastWeek = [NSDate dateWithString:@"2009-11-30 00:00:00 +0000"];
 NSDate *thisMonth = [NSDate dateWithString:@"2009-12-01 00:00:00 +0000"];
 NSDate *lastMonth = [NSDate dateWithString:@"2009-11-01 00:00:00 +0000"];

Answer 1

Adapted from the Date and Time Programming Guide:

// Right now, you can remove the seconds into the day if you want
NSDate *today = [NSDate date];

// All intervals taken from Google
NSDate *yesterday = [today dateByAddingTimeInterval: -86400.0];
NSDate *thisWeek  = [today dateByAddingTimeInterval: -604800.0];
NSDate *lastWeek  = [today dateByAddingTimeInterval: -1209600.0];

// To get the correct number of seconds in each month use NSCalendar
NSDate *thisMonth = [today dateByAddingTimeInterval: -2629743.83];
NSDate *lastMonth = [today dateByAddingTimeInterval: -5259487.66];

If you want the correct exact number of days depending on the month, you should use an NSCalendar.

Answer 2

Might be a better way to write this but here what i came up on Ben's NSCalendar suggestion and working from there to NSDateComponents

NSCalendar *cal = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];
NSDateComponents *components = [cal components:( NSCalendarUnitHour | NSCalendarUnitMinute | NSCalendarUnitSecond ) fromDate:[[NSDate alloc] init]];

[components setHour:-[components hour]];
[components setMinute:-[components minute]];
[components setSecond:-[components second]];
NSDate *today = [cal dateByAddingComponents:components toDate:[[NSDate alloc] init] options:0]; //This variable should now be pointing at a date object that is the start of today (midnight);

[components setHour:-24];
[components setMinute:0];
[components setSecond:0];
NSDate *yesterday = [cal dateByAddingComponents:components toDate: today options:0];

components = [cal components:NSWeekdayCalendarUnit | NSYearCalendarUnit | NSMonthCalendarUnit | NSDayCalendarUnit fromDate:[[NSDate alloc] init]];

[components setDay:([components day] - ([components weekday] - 1))]; 
NSDate *thisWeek  = [cal dateFromComponents:components];

[components setDay:([components day] - 7)];
NSDate *lastWeek  = [cal dateFromComponents:components];

[components setDay:([components day] - ([components day] -1))]; 
NSDate *thisMonth = [cal dateFromComponents:components];

[components setMonth:([components month] - 1)]; 
NSDate *lastMonth = [cal dateFromComponents:components];

NSLog(@"today=%@",today);
NSLog(@"yesterday=%@",yesterday);
NSLog(@"thisWeek=%@",thisWeek);
NSLog(@"lastWeek=%@",lastWeek);
NSLog(@"thisMonth=%@",thisMonth);
NSLog(@"lastMonth=%@",lastMonth);

Answer 3

NSDateComponents is nice to get today:

NSCalendar *cal = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];

NSDate *date = [NSDate date];
NSDateComponents *comps = [cal components:(NSYearCalendarUnit | NSMonthCalendarUnit | NSDayCalendarUnit) 
                                                          fromDate:date];
NSDate *today = [cal dateFromComponents:comps];

This creates a NSDate with only year, month and date:

(gdb) po today
2010-06-22 00:00:00 +0200

To get yesterday, etc. you can calculate it using NSDateComponents:

NSDateComponents *components = [[NSDateComponents alloc] init];
[components setDay:-1];
NSDate *yesterday = [cal dateByAddingComponents:components toDate:today options:0];