Date Comparing in C#

Question

i'm currently working on a little project and i'm stuck with a little problem. I would like my program to call a method CheckDate on boot. This method would read in a .txt file to see the last saved date in (yyyy/mm/dd) format. Then it would compare it with todays date and if it's not the same go on with some instructions.I've read the doc here but can't quite find which method best suites my need.

Question 1: Is there a way to get today's date in (yyyy/mm/dd) format?

Question 2: What's the easiest way to compare Dates in C#?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

1. DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy/MM/dd")
2. DateTime.Parse(input).Date == DateTime.Now.Date

Answer 2

You can get today's date as a string by simply formatting a date.

String today = String.Format("{0: yyyy/MM/dd}", DateTime.Now); 
String today = DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy/MM/dd");

I would advise against using a text file as your means of saving data but if you are going with that system the only thing you would have to do is check to see if the date from the text file matches the date you formatted. Simply comparing formatted strings should do the trick.

if (string a == string b)

You could even put it in one line without having to format stuff separately

if (DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy/MM/dd").Equals("date pulled from txt file"))