How to compare only Date without Time in DateTime types?

Question

Is there a way to compare two DateTime variables but to disregard the Time part.

The app stores items in the DB and adds a published date. I want to keep the exact time but still be able to pull by the date itself.

I want to compare 12/3/89 12:43:34 and 12/3/89 11:22:12 and have it disregard the actual time of day so both of these are considered the same.

I guess I can set all the times of day to 00:00:00 before I compare but I actually do want to know the time of day I just also want to be able to compare by date only.

I found some code that has the same issue and they compare the year, month and day separately. Is there a better way to do this?

Quintin Robinson · Accepted Answer · 2009-03-25 19:19:21Z

717

try using the Date property on the DateTime Object...

if(dtOne.Date == dtTwo.Date)
    ....

answered Mar 25, 2009 at 19:19

Quintin Robinson

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7 Comments

Mike Devenney Over a year ago

If you end up here sometime after early 2017 looking for a way to compare dates in an Entity Framework environment like I did check out the answer below by Alejandro and the comment by wasatchWizard.

nardnob Over a year ago

If you end up here sometime after mid 2018 looking for a way to read another extremely helpful comment like the one above, you're out of luck.

Philip Vaughn Over a year ago

This is absolutely NOT the correct answer. The OP specifically said Linq to SQL and datetime.date is NOT allowed in linq expressions.

codah Over a year ago

@Mr.Ott 2021 here. Jan 20, USA (inauguration day) 4,367 Covid-19 deaths. But yeah good tip. For my purposes of filtering by date range, I had an issue because DateTime.Today uses time of 00:00:00 so I just used DateTime.Today.AddHours(23).AddMinutes(59).AddSeconds(59) instead.

Neil Over a year ago

If you end up here sometimes after late 2021 looking for confirmation on this answer. It does work.

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Reed Copsey · Accepted Answer · 2009-03-25 19:20:51Z

70

For a true comparison, you can use:

dateTime1.Date.CompareTo(dateTime2.Date);

answered Mar 25, 2009 at 19:20

Reed Copsey

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12 Comments

Randolpho Over a year ago

What exactly do you mean by "true comparison"?

Reed Copsey Over a year ago

Randolpho: Using == will give you equality, so whether the two dates are the same or different. CompareTo will ~compare~ them, ie: give you a way in one pass to tell if date1>date2, date1<date2, or date1==date2.

David Over a year ago

@ReedCopsey Can't you just use (dateTime1.Date < dateTime1.Date)?

Jeppe Stig Nielsen Over a year ago

But who wants -1, 0 and 1, really? They are just magical numbers representing "less", "equal" and "greater". And you will have to "compare" the resulting integer to something afterwards because there are three possible values. I must agree with @David that it is much more natural to use dateTime1.Date < dateTime1.Date, and similarly with <=, > and >=, in most applications.

Reed Copsey Over a year ago

@JeppeStigNielsen If you're using this in anything that sorts or takes a comaprison, then you want it - otherwise, you typically just want the operators.

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Alejandro del Río · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-17 09:30:37Z

68

This is how I do this in order to work with LINQ.

DateTime date_time_to_compare = DateTime.Now;
//Compare only date parts
context.YourObject.FirstOrDefault(r =>
                EntityFunctions.TruncateTime(r.date) == EntityFunctions.TruncateTime(date_to_compare));

If you only use dtOne.Date == dtTwo.Date it wont work with LINQ (Error: The specified type member 'Date' is not supported in LINQ to Entities)

answered Feb 17, 2014 at 9:30

Alejandro del Río

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2 Comments

kodybrown Over a year ago

This works great with LINQ to Entities. However, EntityFunctions has been deprecated in .NET 4.5.2. Use this instead: DbFunctions.TruncateTime. It appears to be the identical method, just moved..

Bernard Borg Over a year ago

According to this thread this is no longer needed in EF Core

Korayem · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-15 13:25:29Z

36

If you're using Entity Framework < v6.0, then use EntityFunctions.TruncateTime If you're using Entity Framework >= v6.0, then use DbFunctions.TruncateTime

Use either (based on your EF version) around any DateTime class property you want to use inside your Linq query

Example

var list = db.Cars.Where(c=> DbFunctions.TruncateTime(c.CreatedDate) 
                                       >= DbFunctions.TruncateTime(DateTime.UtcNow));

edited May 15, 2019 at 13:25

answered Apr 4, 2016 at 23:02

Korayem

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3 Comments

curiousBoy Over a year ago

Just a reminder here: As long as it is Linq to Entity.

Philip Vaughn Over a year ago

This should be the correct answer (as of 2019). EntityFunctions is depreciated and you're not allowed to use datetime.date in a lambda expression (for whatever reason - I mean seriously... why haven't they fixed this?!).

om-ha Over a year ago

This should be the accepted answer. Either that or possibly reset time on either side of the DateTime comparison. e.g. LHS <= RHS where LHS is startDateTime.Date (00:00 AM) and RHS is endDateTime.Date.AddHours(23).AddMinutes(59).AddSeconds(59) (23:59:59 PM)

Vivek Jain · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-03 15:56:51Z

12

DateTime dt1 = DateTime.Now.Date;
DateTime dt2 = Convert.ToDateTime(TextBox4.Text.Trim()).Date;
if (dt1 >= dt2)
{
    MessageBox.Show("Valid Date");
}
else
{
    MessageBox.Show("Invalid Date... Please Give Correct Date....");
}

edited Sep 3, 2015 at 15:56

Vivek Jain

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answered May 26, 2012 at 11:06

Devarajan.T

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Comments

Code Geek · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-10 13:53:12Z

11

DateTime? NextChoiceDate = new DateTime();
DateTIme? NextSwitchDate = new DateTime();
if(NextChoiceDate.Value.Date == NextSwitchDate.Value.Date)
{
Console.WriteLine("Equal");
}

You can use this if you are using nullable DateFields.

answered Mar 10, 2016 at 13:53

Code Geek

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2 Comments

Gert Arnold Over a year ago

This doesn't answer the question how to do it in Entity Framework.

Windgate Over a year ago

The question mentions DateTime but nothing about EF, so this answer is perfectly valid

Mohan Sharma · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-30 12:27:22Z

3

DateTime dt1=DateTime.ParseExact(date1,"dd-MM-yyyy",null);
DateTime dt2=DateTime.ParseExact(date2,"dd-MM-yyyy",null);

int cmp=dt1.CompareTo(dt2);

   if(cmp>0) {
       // date1 is greater means date1 is comes after date2
   } else if(cmp<0) {
       // date2 is greater means date1 is comes after date1
   } else {
       // date1 is same as date2
   }

answered Jun 30, 2014 at 12:27

Mohan Sharma

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Comments

LarsTech · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-23 14:52:06Z

2

DateTime econvertedDate = Convert.ToDateTime(end_date);
DateTime sconvertedDate = Convert.ToDateTime(start_date);

TimeSpan age = econvertedDate.Subtract(sconvertedDate);
Int32 diff = Convert.ToInt32(age.TotalDays);

The diff value represents the number of days for the age. If the value is negative the start date falls after the end date. This is a good check.

edited Aug 23, 2013 at 14:52

LarsTech

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answered Aug 23, 2013 at 14:50

dgsjr

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Comments

Cristian · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-13 15:20:09Z

2

You can try

if(dtOne.Year == dtTwo.Year && dtOne.Month == dtTwo.Month && dtOne.Day == dtTwo.Day)
  ....

answered Feb 13, 2020 at 15:20

Cristian

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Comments

Serj Sagan · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-07 00:37:25Z

2

In .NET 5:

To compare date without time you must use EF.Functions.DateDiffDay() otherwise you will be comparing in code and this means you are probably pulling way more data from the DB than you need to.

.Where(x => EF.Functions.DateDiffDay(x.ReceiptDate, value) == 0);

answered Apr 7, 2021 at 0:37

Serj Sagan

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Comments

AArteDoCodigo.com.br - Maniero · Accepted Answer · 2025-04-01 00:13:50Z

2

Since .NET 6, we have the DateOnly type, which only holds the date and can be used where applicable or even as a trick if you're willing to perform conversions. It’s not a universal solution, but it can be useful in some cases.

using System;
DateTime date = new(89, 3, 12, 12, 43, 34);
DateTime date2 = new(89, 3, 12, 11, 22, 12);
DateOnly d1 = new(date.Year, date.Month, date.Day);
DateOnly d2 = new(date2.Year, date2.Month, date2.Day);
Console.WriteLine(date == date2);
Console.WriteLine(d1 == d2);

See on .NET Fidlle. I put on Github to future reference.

edited Apr 1 at 0:13

answered Mar 31 at 23:59

AArteDoCodigo.com.br - Maniero

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Comments

Adam Robinson · Accepted Answer · 2009-03-25 19:23:46Z

1

In your join or where clause, use the Date property of the column. Behind the scenes, this executes a CONVERT(DATE, <expression>) operation. This should allow you to compare dates without the time.

answered Mar 25, 2009 at 19:23

Adam Robinson

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Comments

Hetuk Upadhyay · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-19 14:51:07Z

-19

        int o1 = date1.IndexOf("-");
        int o2 = date1.IndexOf("-",o1 + 1);
        string str11 = date1.Substring(0,o1);
        string str12 = date1.Substring(o1 + 1, o2 - o1 - 1);
        string str13 = date1.Substring(o2 + 1);

        int o21 = date2.IndexOf("-");
        int o22 = date2.IndexOf("-", o1 + 1);
        string str21 = date2.Substring(0, o1);
        string str22 = date2.Substring(o1 + 1, o2 - o1 - 1);
        string str23 = date2.Substring(o2 + 1);

        if (Convert.ToInt32(str11) > Convert.ToInt32(str21))
        {
        }
        else if (Convert.ToInt32(str12) > Convert.ToInt32(str22))
        {
        }
        else if (Convert.ToInt32(str12) == Convert.ToInt32(str22) && Convert.ToInt32(str13) > Convert.ToInt32(str23))
        {
        }

answered Oct 19, 2011 at 14:51

Hetuk Upadhyay

13

2 Comments

William Hurst Over a year ago

-1: Why not just parse to DateTime and use @Quintin Robinson's method? This is code I would expect to see on the The Daily WTF.

Nayan Katkani Over a year ago

No need to create this much variables as it increase response time for such a easy task.

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