Adds date comparison methods

[idlira]

Description

Unfortunately Java's standard methods do not provide afterOrEqual or beforeOrEqual, nor a range check.

Note that we are leaving null-handling for the caller to decide, as it strongly depends on usage: am empty date might represent an infinite date in the past or in the future, or represent an exception.

Checklist

• Code change has been tested and works locally
• Code was formatted via IntelliJ and follows SonarLint & best practices

[jakobvogel]

Reformat and new methods would have been better in two commits. And for the relatively simple methods, is it really worth to use a helper class? (Referring to the use of Range)

[idlira]

Reformat and new methods would have been better in two commits. And for the relatively simple methods, is it really worth to use a helper class? (Referring to the use of Range)

Range comes from Google, and we hope to have a better alternative one day. And since we already provide a Dates class, it kinda suits for it.

PS: sorry for the reformat.

[jakobvogel]

Reformat and new methods would have been better in two commits. And for the relatively simple methods, is it really worth to use a helper class? (Referring to the use of Range)

Range comes from Google, and we hope to have a better alternative one day. And since we already provide a Dates class, it kinda suits for it.

Hmm, for instance, Range.atMost(referenceDate).contains(dateToCheck) should be the same as referenceDate.isAfter(dateToCheck) || referenceDate.isEqual(dateToCheck) if I am not wrong? The Range methods do not seem to support null values and also throw exceptions in such cases. And they allocate an internal object that is likely not required when just comparing the values. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not see any particular advantage of using Range?

Extending the Dates class is fine, I was only wondering about the use of Range.

[idlira]

Hmm, for instance, Range.atMost(referenceDate).contains(dateToCheck) should be the same as referenceDate.isAfter(dateToCheck) || referenceDate.isEqual(dateToCheck) if I am not wrong? The Range methods do not seem to support null values and also throw exceptions in such cases. And they allocate an internal object that is likely not required when just comparing the values. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not see any particular advantage of using Range?

It was a suggestion from a chat with @sabieber a while ago. I will review that...