iOS readable string/date formatter

Question

I'm trying to display difference of 2 date in readable format. As you can see from my below code there are a lot of if-else closures. Is there any kind of formatter or my way of if-elses is right?

NSCalendar *c = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];
NSDateComponents *components = [c components:(NSCalendarUnitMonth | NSCalendarUnitDay)
                                        fromDate:startDate
                                          toDate:endDate
                                         options:0];

NSString *leftTimeStr = @"";
if (components.month == 0) {
    if (components.day == 1) {
        leftTimeStr = @"after 1 day";
    }
    else if (components.day > 1) {
        leftTimeStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"after %ld days", (long)components.day];
    }
}
else if (components.month == 1) {
    if (components.day == 0) {
        leftTimeStr = @"after 1 month";
    }
    else if (components.day == 1) {
        leftTimeStr = @"after 1 month 1 day";
    }
    else if (components.day > 1) {
        leftTimeStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"after 1 month %ld days", (long)components.day];
    }
}
else if (components.month > 1) {
    if (components.day == 0) {
        leftTimeStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"after %ld months", (long)components.month];
    }
    else if (components.day == 1) {
        leftTimeStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"after %ld months 1 day", (long)components.month];
    }
    else if (components.day > 1) {
        leftTimeStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"after %ld months %ld days", (long)components.month, (long)components.day];
    }
}

Resulting leftTimeStr string should be like one of the belows:

"after 5 months 22 days",
"after 5 months 1 day",
"after 5 months",
"after 1 month 22 days",
...
"after 22 days",
"after 1 day"

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 31 '17 at 06:29

For that you can use NSDateComponentsFormatter.

NSDateComponentsFormatter *formatter = [[NSDateComponentsFormatter alloc] init];
[formatter setAllowedUnits:NSCalendarUnitMonth | NSCalendarUnitDay];
formatter.maximumUnitCount = 2;
formatter.unitsStyle = NSDateComponentsFormatterUnitsStyleFull;
NSString *difference = [formatter stringFromDate:startDate toDate:endDate];

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 31 '17 at 08:22

1

Use following category class of NSDate.

NSDate *date = [[NSDate alloc] initWithTimeIntervalSince1970:0];
NSString *ago = [date timeAgo];
NSLog(@"Output is: \"%@\"", ago);
2011-11-12 17:19:25.608 Proj[0:0] Output is: "41 years ago"

Source from GitHub

edited Jan 31 '17 at 08:22

Yurets

3,999
17
54
74

answered Jan 31 '17 at 06:23

KKRocks

8,222
1
18
84

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 31 '17 at 06:30

1

You can use NSDateComponentsFormatter with the SpellOut unit style which can output something like: "One hour, ten minutes".

Check here for details: http://nshipster.com/nsformatter/#nsdatecomponentsformatter

answered Jan 31 '17 at 06:30

Omar AlEisa

174
8

iOS readable string/date formatter

3 Answers3