how to find biggest and smallest date in a list?

Question

I have collection of object as Collection basics = periodic.getGeneratedBasic(); When iterate over this collection and get every object and cast it, i can extract date of every object. Now at this point i want to check out in this collection of object which one is the smallness and biggest date.

Does any one know how to do that?

Date max;
Date min;
for(Object o:basics){
      Basic b = (Basic) o;
      Date temp;
      if(b.State=='U'){
           basicAList.add(ba);
           dateCollection.add(b.firstDateTime);
           temp= ;
           if(b.firstDateTime <)
     }
  }

Answer 1

In Java 8 you can do:

final Date maxDate = dates.stream()
    .max(Date::compareTo)
    .get();

Answer 2

Date max = new Date(0);
Date min = new Date(0);
for(Object o:basics){
    Basic b = (Basic) o;
    if(b.State=='U'){
        basicAList.add(ba);
        dateCollection.add(b.firstDateTime);
        if(min.compareTo(b.firstDateTime) > 0) min = b.firstDateTime;
        else if(max.compareTo(b.firstDateTime) < 0) max = b.firstDateTime;
    }
}