Extract Date and Hour from NSDate - Objective C

Question

I have dateString with this format "mm/dd/yyyy '-' HH:mm". I want to extract the date in string and hour in string. I've tried the following code but this return a wrong date:

- (void) extractDate: (NSString *)dateString intoHour: (NSString *)hourLabel and: (NSString*)dateLabel {
    NSDateFormatter *formatter=[[NSDateFormatter alloc]init];
    [formatter setDateFormat:@"mm/dd/yyyy '-' HH:mm"];
    NSData *date = [formatter dateFromString:dateString];

    NSDateComponents *components = [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] components:NSCalendarUnitDay | NSCalendarUnitMonth | NSCalendarUnitYear | NSHourCalendarUnit | NSMinuteCalendarUnit fromDate:date];

    hourLabel = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%lu:%lu", [components hour], [components minute]];
    dateLabel = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%lu/%lu/%lu", [components day], [components month], [components year]];
}

Exemple String: "05/01/2015 - 11:15"

Result: date: 1/1/2015, time: 11:15 and also how can I maintain this date format dd/mm/yyyy, I mean when the day is 1, it shows 01

`MM` for the month, else wise it's minutes (as you used it already). NSNumberFormatter can use leading zero if needed. Or you can just use a `NSDateFormatter` from the date you got, instead of use `NSDateComponents`: `[formatter setDateFormat:@"MM/dd/yyyy"]; dateLabel = [formatter stringFromDate:date]; [formatter setDateFormat:@"HH:mm"]; hourLabel = [formatter stringFromDate:date];` By the way `hourLabel`/`dateLabel` as `NSString` and not `UILabel` is quite a misleading var naming. — Larme, Mar 31 '16 at 16:14
You should use `NSDateFormatter` to do it. But for your interest, use `[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%02d", [components day]]` would do the job for you, — zc246, Mar 31 '16 at 16:19

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 31 '16 at 18:26

Not tested but:

MM for the month. Not mm which is minutes.

You already have a NSDateFormatter so why not use it again instead of NSDateComponents and NSString formats?

NSDateFormatter *formatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc]init];
[formatter setDateFormat:@"MM/dd/yyyy '-' HH:mm"];
NSDate *date = [formatter dateFromString:dateString];

//Now you have the correct date. So we'll use the NSDateFormatter to transform NSDate (date) into NSString according to the format we need.

[formatter setDateFormat:@"MM/dd/yyyy"];
dateLabel = [formatter stringFromDate:date];
[formatter setDateFormat:@"HH:mm"];
hourLabel = [formatter stringFromDate:date];

hourLabel/dateLabel as NSString and not UILabel is quite a misleading var naming.

Extract Date and Hour from NSDate - Objective C

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