title: Comparing NSDates without time component
body: <p>In a swift playground, I have been using</p>
  
  <pre><code>NSDate.date() 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But, this always appears with the time element appended. For my app I need to ignore the time element. Is this possible in Swift? How can it be done? Even if I could set the time element to be the same time on every date that would work too.</p>
  
  <p>Also, I am trying to compare two dates and at the moment I am using the following code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>var earlierDate:NSDate = firstDate.earlierDate(secondDate)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is this the only way or can I do this in a way that ignores the time element? For instance I don't want a result if they are the same day, but different times.</p>