Equivalent of Math Min Math Max for Dates

Question

What s the quickest and easiest way to get the Min  or Max  value between two dates  Is there an equivalent to Math Min   amp  Math Max  for dates   I want to do something like    if  Math Min Date1  Date2   lt  MINIMUM ALLOWED DATE            not allowed to do this      Obviously the above Math Min doesn t work because they re dates

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public static class DateTool       public static DateTime Min DateTime x  DateTime y                return  x ToUniversalTime    lt  y ToUniversalTime      x   y            public static DateTime Max DateTime x  DateTime y                return  x ToUniversalTime    gt  y ToUniversalTime      x   y            This allows the dates to have different  kinds  and returns the instance that was passed in  not returning a new DateTime constructed from Ticks or Milliseconds     TestMethod        public void MinTest2                 DateTime x   new DateTime 2001  1  1  1  1  2  DateTimeKind Utc           DateTime y   new DateTime 2001  1  1  1  1  1  DateTimeKind Local              Presumes Local TimeZone adjustment to UTC  gt  0         DateTime actual   DateTool Min x  y           Assert AreEqual x  actual           Note that this test would fail East of Greenwich

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If you want to call it more like Math Max  you can do something like this very short expression body   public static DateTime Max params DateTime   dates    gt  dates Max          var lastUpdatedTime   DateMath Max feedItemDateTime  assemblyUpdatedDateTime

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How about a DateTime extension method   public static DateTime MaxOf this DateTime instance  DateTime dateTime        return instance  gt  dateTime   instance   dateTime      Usage   var maxDate   date1 MaxOf date2

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There s no built in method to do that  You can use the expression    date1  gt  date2   date1   date2    to find the maximum of the two   You can write a generic method to calculate Min or Max for any type  provided that Comparer lt T gt  Default is set appropriately    public static T Max lt T gt  T first  T second        if  Comparer lt T gt  Default Compare first  second   gt  0          return first      return second      You can use LINQ too   new   date1  date2  date3  Max

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There is no overload for DateTime values  but you can get the long value Ticks that is what the values contain  compare them and then create a new DateTime value from the result   new DateTime Math Min Date1 Ticks  Date2 Ticks      Note that the DateTime structure also contains a Kind property  that is not retained in the new value  This is normally not a problem  if you compare DateTime values of different kinds the comparison doesn t make sense anyway

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Linq Min     Linq Max   approach   DateTime date1   new DateTime 2000 1 1   DateTime date2   new DateTime 2001 1 1    DateTime minresult   new     date1 date2   Min    DateTime maxresult   new     date1 date2   Max

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Now that we have LINQ  you can create an array with your two values  DateTimes  TimeSpans  whatever  and then use the  Max   extension method    var values   new     Date1  Date2     var max   values Max       It reads nice  it s as efficient as Max can be  and it s reusable for more than 2 values of comparison    The whole problem below worrying about  Kind is a big deal    but I avoid that by never working in local times  ever  If I have something important regarding times  I always work in UTC  even if it means more work to get there

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How about   public static T Min lt T gt  params T   values        if  values    null  throw new ArgumentNullException  values        var comparer   Comparer lt T gt  Default      switch values Length            case 0  throw new ArgumentException            case 1  return values 0           case 2  return comparer Compare values 0  values 1    lt  0                  values 0    values 1           default              T best   values 0               for  int i   1  i  lt  values Length  i                                  if  comparer Compare values i   best   lt  0                                        best   values i                                               return best                     overload for the common  2  case    public static T Min lt T gt  T x  T y        return Comparer lt T gt  Default Compare x  y   lt  0   x   y      Works with any type that supports IComparable lt T gt  or IComparable   Actually  with LINQ  another alternative is   var min   new    x y z  Min

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Two different dates var date1   new Date 2013  05  13    var date2   new Date 2013  04  10       convert both dates in milliseconds and use Math min function var minDate   Math min date1 valueOf    date2 valueOf        convert minDate to Date var date   new Date minDate      http   jsfiddle net 5CR37

[.net] Equivalent of Math.Min & Math.Max for Dates?

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