Best way to find date nearest to target in a list of dates?

Question

I have a list of Date objects, and a target Date. I want to find the date in the list that\'s nearest to the target date, but only dates that are before the target date.

Answer 1

Although the answer from Keeg is valid in 1.6 in 1.5 there is no method lower() (We're unfortunate to develop against 1.5 :-( )

this one works in 1.5

import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.TreeSet;

public class GetNearestDate {

  public static void main( String[] args ) throws ParseException {

    final SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat( "dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss" );

    List< Date > otherDates = Arrays.asList( new Date[]{
      simpleDateFormat.parse( "01.01.2008 01:00:00" ) ,
      simpleDateFormat.parse( "01.01.2008 01:00:02" ) } );
    System.out.println( simpleDateFormat.parse( "01.01.2008 01:00:00" ).equals(
      get( otherDates , simpleDateFormat.parse( "01.01.2008 01:00:01" ) ) ) );
    System.out.println( simpleDateFormat.parse( "01.01.2008 01:00:02" ).equals(
      get( otherDates , simpleDateFormat.parse( "01.01.2008 01:00:03" ) ) ) );
    System.out.println( null == get( otherDates , simpleDateFormat.parse( "01.01.2008 01:00:00" ) ) );
  }

  public static Date get( List< Date > otherDates , Date dateToApproach ) {
    final TreeSet< Date > set = new TreeSet< Date >( otherDates );
    set.add( dateToApproach );
    final ArrayList< Date > list = new ArrayList< Date >( set );
    final int indexOf = list.indexOf( dateToApproach );
    if ( indexOf == 0 )
      return null;
    return list.get( indexOf - 1 );
  }

}