Compare Dates (with.Java)

This is the “Compare Dates” problem.

We’re going to learn by solving coding test problems, reflecting on the problems we solved, and exploring other ways to solve them.

Let’s start with the problem

Problem

You are given two integer arrays date1 and date2.

Each of the two arrays represents a date and is given in the form [year, month, day], where year represents the year, month represents the month, and day represents the day.

Complete the solution function to return 1 if date1 is earlier than date2, or 0 otherwise.

Example input and output

My solution to the ### problem

class Solution {
    public int solution(int[] date1, int[] date2) {
        int answer = 0;
        for(int i = 2; i >= 0; i--){
            if(date1[i] < date2[i]){
                answer = 1;
            }else if(date1[i] > date2[i]){
                answer = 0;
            }
        }
    } return answer;
}

solution description

int answer = 0;: Initialize an integer variable, answer, to store the result. The initial value is 0.

for(int i = 2; i >= 0; i–) : Compares each date field (year, month, day) using a loop starting at 2 and iterating down to 0. The loop starts with the year and compares in the following order: year, month, day.

if(date1[i] < date2[i]): If the value of date1 is less than the value of date2 in the current field:

Set answer to 1. This indicates when date1 is earlier than date2 . else if(date1[i] > date2[i]) : If the value of date1 is greater than the value of date2 in the current field:

Set answer to 0. This indicates when date1 is later than date2.

return answer;: Returns the value of answer, which represents the result of comparing the dates.