Formatting NSDate into particular styles for both year, month, day, and hour, minute, seconds

Question

I basically need to get current date and time separately, formatted as:

2009-04-26 
11:06:54

The code below, from another question on the same topic, generates

now:        |2009-06-01 23:18:23 +0100| 
dateString: |Jun 01, 2009 23:18| 
parsed:     |2009-06-01 23:18:00 +0100|

This is almost what I'm looking for, but I want to separate the day and time.

NSDateFormatter *format = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[format setDateFormat:@"MMM dd, yyyy HH:mm"];

NSDate *now = [[NSDate alloc] init];

NSString *dateString = [format stringFromDate:now];

NSDateFormatter *inFormat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[inFormat setDateFormat:@"MMM dd, yyyy"];

NSDate *parsed = [inFormat dateFromString:dateString];

NSLog(@"\n"
"now:        |%@| \n"
"dateString: |%@| \n"
"parsed:     |%@|", now, dateString, parsed);

In a case like this where you've taken the time to write out the code you ended up using to solve the problem I would probably stick it (in this case everything below edit2) in an answer rather than an edit to your post. Not a big thing either way, but it makes it a bit easier to find/see that it's a solution to the question. — Lawrence Johnston, Jun 02 '09 at 00:56

score 194 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 04 '11 at 11:11

this is what i used:

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

NSDateFormatter *timeFormat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[timeFormat setDateFormat:@"HH:mm:ss"];

NSDate *now = [[NSDate alloc] init];

NSString *theDate = [dateFormat stringFromDate:now];
NSString *theTime = [timeFormat stringFromDate:now];

NSLog(@"\n"
      "theDate: |%@| \n"
      "theTime: |%@| \n"
      , theDate, theTime);

[dateFormat release];
[timeFormat release];
[now release];

score 72 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 04 '11 at 11:12

72

iPhone format strings are in Unicode format. Behind the link is a table explaining what all the letters above mean so you can build your own.

And of course don't forget to release your date formatters when you're done with them. The above code leaks format, now, and inFormat.

edited Jul 04 '11 at 11:12

Srikar Appalaraju

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answered Jun 01 '09 at 22:34

Rob Napier

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It leaks even with ARC activated? – Dimme Jan 12 '13 at 13:08
19

The above won't have any leaks under ARC (of course ARC wasn't available in 2009 when we were having this discussion). – Rob Napier Jan 13 '13 at 21:51

score 12 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 05 '13 at 12:49

you can use this method just pass your date to it

-(NSString *)getDateFromString:(NSString *)string
{

    NSString * dateString = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"%@",string];

    NSDateFormatter* dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    [dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"your current date format"];
    NSDate* myDate = [dateFormatter dateFromString:dateString];

    NSDateFormatter *formatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    [formatter setDateFormat:@"your desired format"];
    NSString *stringFromDate = [formatter stringFromDate:myDate];

    NSLog(@"%@", stringFromDate);
    return stringFromDate;
}

PT Vyas · Answer 4 · 2016-02-24T06:39:31.170

12

    NSDateFormatter *dateformat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    [dateformat setDateFormat:@"Your Date Format"];

set the format to return is....

yyyy-MM-dd return 2015-12-17 date

yyyy-MMM-dd return 2015-Dec-17 date

yy-MM-dd return 15-12-17 date

dd-MM-yy return 17-12-15 date

dd-MM-yyyy return 17-12-2015 date

yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss return 2015-Dec-17 08:07:13 date and time

yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm return 2015-Dec-17 08:07 date and time

For more Details Data and Time Format for Click Now.

Thank you.....

edited Feb 24 '16 at 06:39

answered Dec 18 '15 at 12:38

PT Vyas

716
9
28

1

Please provide additional description along with the code sample. – Maciej Lach Dec 18 '15 at 12:47
I have this date '2018-06-08T07:30:05.391Z' i have tried 'yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.000Z' but getting nil value. – Pramod Tapaniya Jun 08 '18 at 10:11

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 03 '15 at 08:41

nothing new but still want to share my method:

+(NSString*) getDateStringFromSrcFormat:(NSString *) srcFormat destFormat:(NSString *)
destFormat scrString:(NSString *) srcString
{
    NSString *dateString = srcString;
    NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    //[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"MM-dd-yyyy"];
    [dateFormatter setDateFormat:srcFormat];
    NSDate *date = [dateFormatter dateFromString:dateString];

    // Convert date object into desired format
    //[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd"];
    [dateFormatter setDateFormat:destFormat];
    NSString *newDateString = [dateFormatter stringFromDate:date];
    return newDateString;
}

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 13 '15 at 10:02

3

For swift

var dateString:String = "2014-05-20";
var dateFmt = NSDateFormatter()
// the format you want
dateFmt.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd"
var date1:NSDate = dateFmt.dateFromString(dateString)!;

answered Jan 13 '15 at 10:02

score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Swift 3

extension Date {
    
    func toString(template: String) -> String {
        let formatter = DateFormatter()
        formatter.dateFormat = DateFormatter.dateFormat(fromTemplate: template, options: 0, locale: NSLocale.current)
        return formatter.string(from: self)
    }
    
}

Usage

let now = Date()
let nowStr0 = now.toString(template: "EEEEdMMM") // Tuesday, May 9
let nowStr1 = now.toString(template: "yyyy-MM-dd") // 2017-05-09
let nowStr2 = now.toString(template: "HH:mm:ss") // 17:47:09

Play with template to match your needs. Examples and doc here to help you build the template you need.

Note

You may want to cache your DateFormatter if you plan to use it in TableView for instance. To give an idea, looping over 1000 dates took me 0.5 sec using the above toString(template: String) function, compared to 0.05 sec using myFormatter.string(from: Date).

To make that note stronger (because it's very important) you may refactor your function to take an optional parameter with a default value of the new instance. I don't know why you got downvoted, so I'm upvoting it. — Nat, Nov 20 '17 at 13:43

Nikesh K · Answer 8 · 2013-07-04T08:33:05.920

-6

NSDate *date         = [NSDate date];
NSDateFormatter *df = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[df setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd"]
NSString *dateString  = [df stringFromDate:date];
[df setDateFormat:@"hh:mm:ss"];
NSString *hoursString = [df stringFromDate:date];

Thats it, you got it all you want.

edited Jul 04 '13 at 08:33

answered Nov 26 '10 at 18:48

Nikesh K

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6
10

Formatting NSDate into particular styles for both year, month, day, and hour, minute, seconds

8 Answers8

Swift 3

Usage

Note

Linked

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