Find nearest date among several dates to a given date

Question

I have a list of dates and a current date. How can I find the date which is nearest to the current date?

Answer 1

If you can use a Set instead of a List, put the dates in a NavigableSet such as TreeSet and use the methods lower and higher.

NavigableSet dates = new TreeSet();
// add some dates to dates
Date now = new Date();
Date highestDateUpUntilNow = dates.lower(now);