Date formatter returning nil value

Question

I have this code working but now all of a sudden, it started crashing. I could not figure it out, any help would be appreciated.

 let dateFormatter = NSDateFormatter()
 dateFormat = "EEE, MMM d, yyyy hh:mm a"
 dateFormatter.dateFormat = dateFormat                  
 let date = dateFormatter.dateFromString("Thu, Jan 5, 2017 12:28 PM")

It is returning date as nil. Why? I want it to return proper date.

This looks like a possible duplicate question, but it is with specific details.

I tried it and it return the proper date `let dateFormatter = DateFormatter() let dateFormat = "EEE, MMM d, yyyy hh:mm a" dateFormatter.dateFormat = dateFormat let date = dateFormatter.date(from: "Thu, Jan 5, 2017 12:28 PM")` date is **"Jan 5, 2017, 12:28 PM"**. — nynohu, Jan 06 '17 at 06:41
Try setting the formatters locale to "en_US_POSIX", compare http://stackoverflow.com/a/40702569/1187415. — Martin R, Jan 06 '17 at 06:46
Btw, your code is Swift 2, it does *not* compile with Swift 3. — Martin R, Jan 06 '17 at 06:49
@MartinR I think OP might still be using Swift 2 (he shouldn't be, but I think he is) — Benjamin Lowry, Jan 06 '17 at 06:50
@BenjaminLowry: Yes. But *"this is how you would do it in Swift 3"* or *"your code works fine for me"* are not answers to the question *"why does my dateformatter return nil"*? — Martin R, Jan 06 '17 at 06:52
I think this is an iOS related bug. I had the same issue. It was returning nil on iOS 10.0.2, whereas was returning the right date on other iOSes. — Munahil, Jan 06 '17 at 07:37

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 06 '17 at 06:43

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let dateformattor = NSDateFormatter()
dateformattor.dateFormat = "EEE, MMM d, yyyy hh:mm a"
dateformattor.timeZone = NSTimeZone.localTimeZone()
let dt = "Thu, Jan 5, 2017 12:28 PM"

let dt1 = dateformattor.dateFromString(dt as String)
print(dt1) //print date and time UTC format.

Output :

2017-01-05 06:58:00 +0000

answered Jan 06 '17 at 06:43

Himanshu Moradiya

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This is not Swift 3 friendly. – Benjamin Lowry Jan 06 '17 at 06:46
its swift 2.0 @BenjaminLowry – Himanshu Moradiya Jan 06 '17 at 06:47
My bad, I thought OP was using Swift 3.0. – Benjamin Lowry Jan 06 '17 at 06:47
@BenjaminLowry if you need for swift 3.0 then i can also convert this simple code in swift 3.0 – Himanshu Moradiya Jan 06 '17 at 06:49
Oh no, I've also posted an answer to this question (in swift 3). I just misread the comments and thought the OP was using swift 3. – Benjamin Lowry Jan 06 '17 at 06:50
@BenjaminLowry its ok. then my answer is correct if you agree then give up vote according to question. – Himanshu Moradiya Jan 06 '17 at 06:51
I could say the same to you ;) – Benjamin Lowry Jan 06 '17 at 06:52

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 06 '17 at 06:44

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var dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
        let dateFormat = "EEE, MMM d, yyyy hh:mm a"
        dateFormatter.dateFormat = dateFormat
        let date = dateFormatter.date(from: "Thu, Jan 5, 2017 12:28 PM")

OUTPUT :

answered Jan 06 '17 at 06:44

dahiya_boy

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 06 '17 at 14:02

Every time you work with time and date formatters remember to set locale and timezone!

Device with non-english locale will fail to parse "Thu, Jan 5, 2017 12:28 PM" as "Thu" and "Jan" are obviously english specific.

So:

dateFormatter.timeZone = TimeZone(abbreviation: "UTC")
dateFormatter.locale = Locale(identifier: "en_US_POSIX")

or whatever time zone and locale you want to use

Date formatter returning nil value

3 Answers3