Question

I’ve objects of array, in each object i have different type of strings in one string i am getting date from xml parsing, now my task is that to sort whole data according to time wise(like before date then current date then after date). I am having two problems.

1. How to sort array on this structure like objects of arrays if simple
   then it’ll more easy for me?
2. Which function should I use to sort date wise?

Answer 1

One of several options would be using a comparator block. You didn’t provide enough informations, so I made some assumptions:

• The date string is at the 3rd index of the NSArrays
• The date string looks like 31-12-2011

Code

NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"dd-MM-yyyy"];

array = [array sortedArrayUsingComparator: ^(id a, id b) {
    NSArray *array1 = (NSArray *)a;
    NSArray *array2 = (NSArray *)b;
    NSDate *date1 = [dateFormatter dateFromString:[array1 objectAtIndex:2]];
    NSDate *date2 = [dateFormatter dateFromString:[array2 objectAtIndex:2]];

    return [date1 compare:date2]
}

But you should also consider to have an class representing the data.
In that case you would inter ate over the raw dater and create a object for every data set, put it in an NSMutableArray and sort this. similar.