Xamarin forms display events which are upcoming

Question

I can't seem to get my head around this but what would be the best approach for displaying a list of upcoming events?

At the moment I have a list of json events being displayed. All these events have a specific date on them.

2016-04-01T13:15:00

Most of the events have passed so i do not need to have them shown. How would i go about only showing the upcoming events?

The main thing I cant figure out is how to get todays date...

This is the code I used to display the events.

async void PopulateTableWithData()
{
    var service = new Data.RestService();
    var response = await service.GetEventItemsAsync();

    Debug.WriteLine("JSON RESULTS FOUND: " + response.Count + "events");

    listView.ItemsSource = response; // Display data in listview

    /**ITEM SELECTED EVENT**/
    listView.ItemSelected += (sender, e) =>
    {
        var i = (listView.ItemsSource as List<EventItems>).IndexOf(e.SelectedItem as EventItems);

        string title = response[i].Title;
        string description = response[i].EventDescription;
        string location = response[i].EventLocation;
        string startTime = response[i].EventStartTime;
        string endTime = response[i].EventEndTime;
        string rowKey = response[i].RowKey;

        Navigation.PushAsync(new EventsWebviewPage(title, description, location, startTime, endTime, ReplaceString(rowKey, " ", "%20")));
    };
}

Would I have to use some form of DateTime?

Can anyone give me some guidance?

Thanks

EDITED

async void PopulateTableWithData()
{
    var service = new Data.RestService();
    var response = await service.GetEventItemsAsync();

    Debug.WriteLine("JSON RESULTS FOUND: " + response.Count + "events");

    //listView.ItemsSource = response; // Display data in listview

    for(int i = 0; i < response.Count; i++)
    {
        // Split raw json date
        string[] splitRawDateTime = response[i].EventEndTime.Split('T');
        string[] splitRawDate = splitRawDateTime[0].Split('-');


        string eventYear = splitRawDate[0];
        string eventMonth = splitRawDate[1];
        string eventDay = splitRawDate[2];

        // Compare dates and display events according to date
        DateTime currentDateTime = DateTime.Now;
        DateTime eventDateTime = new DateTime(int.Parse(eventYear), int.Parse(eventMonth), int.Parse(eventDay), 0, 0, 0);

        int compareDates = DateTime.Compare(eventDateTime, currentDateTime);
            List<EventItems> upcomingEvents = new List<EventItems>();

            if (compareDates < 0)
            {
                Debug.WriteLine("Event date {0} is earlier then current date {1}", eventDateTime, currentDateTime);
            }
            else
            {
                Debug.WriteLine("Event date {0} is later then current date {1}", eventDateTime, currentDateTime);

                upcomingEvents.Add(response[i]);
            }
            listView.ItemsSource = upcomingEvents;
        }
    }
}

I have just tried the above code and it seems to be working but how do I only display the upcoming events?

I believe its an issue with my placement of

listView.ItemsSource = response;

I know im probably doing something wrong here. Can anyone help?

Answer 1

You can get the current date and time by using DateTime.Now

You can also create a DateTime object from a string representation of a date by using one of the DateTime.Parse() functions. Then you can compare the two dates by using comparison operators: <, <=, >, >=, ==

Edit: You could try it his way:

async void PopulateTableWithData()
{
    var service = new Data.RestService();
    var response = await service.GetEventItemsAsync();

    Debug.WriteLine("JSON RESULTS FOUND: " + response.Count + "events");

    //listView.ItemsSource = response; // Display data in listview

    //Instantiate the list of upcoming events before the loop
    List<EventItems> upcomingEvents = new List<EventItems>();
    for(int i = 0; i < response.Count; i++)
    {
        // Split raw json date
        string[] splitRawDateTime = response[i].EventEndTime.Split('T');
        string[] splitRawDate = splitRawDateTime[0].Split('-');


        string eventYear = splitRawDate[0];
        string eventMonth = splitRawDate[1];
        string eventDay = splitRawDate[2];

        // Compare dates and display events according to date
        DateTime currentDateTime = DateTime.Now;
        DateTime eventDateTime = new DateTime(int.Parse(eventYear), int.Parse(eventMonth), int.Parse(eventDay), 0, 0, 0);

        int compareDates = DateTime.Compare(eventDateTime, currentDateTime);

        if (compareDates < 0)
        {
            Debug.WriteLine("Event date {0} is earlier then current date {1}", eventDateTime, currentDateTime);
        }
        else
        {
            Debug.WriteLine("Event date {0} is later then current date {1}", eventDateTime, currentDateTime);

            //Populate the list of upcoming events
            upcomingEvents.Add(response[i]);
        }
    }
    //Display the list of upcoming events
    listView.ItemsSource = upcomingEvents;
}