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

Loop through all dates with the following:
1. Have a variable that keeps track of the current closest date
2. Have a variable that is the difference between the current closest date and the current date

When you find a date with a difference less than that of the what you're keeping track of in (2), update the difference and the current closest date

At the end, the current closest date is the closest date in the collection

here's code in python:

dates = [date(2010,1,2), date(2010,5,6), date(2010,3,4), date(2011, 1, 2), date(2010,10,20), date(2009,2,3)]
current_date = dates[0]
current_min = abs(current_date - date.today())
for d in dates:
    if abs(d - date.today()) < current_min:
        current_min = abs(d - date.today())
        current_date = d