How to do date/time comparison

Solution 1:

Use the time package to work with time information in Go.

Time instants can be compared using the Before, After, and Equal methods. The Sub method subtracts two instants, producing a Duration. The Add method adds a Time and a Duration, producing a Time.

Play example:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "time"
)

func inTimeSpan(start, end, check time.Time) bool {
    return check.After(start) && check.Before(end)
}

func main() {
    start, _ := time.Parse(time.RFC822, "01 Jan 15 10:00 UTC")
    end, _ := time.Parse(time.RFC822, "01 Jan 16 10:00 UTC")

    in, _ := time.Parse(time.RFC822, "01 Jan 15 20:00 UTC")
    out, _ := time.Parse(time.RFC822, "01 Jan 17 10:00 UTC")

    if inTimeSpan(start, end, in) {
        fmt.Println(in, "is between", start, "and", end, ".")
    }

    if !inTimeSpan(start, end, out) {
        fmt.Println(out, "is not between", start, "and", end, ".")
    }
}

Solution 2:

For comparison between two times use time.Sub()

// utc life
loc, _ := time.LoadLocation("UTC")

// setup a start and end time
createdAt := time.Now().In(loc).Add(1 * time.Hour)
expiresAt := time.Now().In(loc).Add(4 * time.Hour)

// get the diff
diff := expiresAt.Sub(createdAt)
fmt.Printf("Lifespan is %+v", diff)

The program outputs:

Lifespan is 3h0m0s

http://play.golang.org/p/bbxeTtd4L6

Solution 3:

For case when your interval's end it's date without hours like "from 2017-01-01 to whole day of 2017-01-16" it's better to adjust interval's to 23 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds like:

end = end.Add(time.Duration(23*time.Hour) + time.Duration(59*time.Minute) + time.Duration(59*time.Second)) 

if now.After(start) && now.Before(end) {
    ...
}