String description of NSDate

Question

I have the following code:

[ [NSDate date] descriptionWithLocale: @"yyyy-MM-dd" ]

I want it to return a date in the following format: "2009-04-23"

But it returns: Thursday, April 23, 2009 11:27:03 PM GMT+03:00

What am I doing wrong?

Thank you in advance.

score 91 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 14 '13 at 22:05

91

NSDateFormatter* dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd"];
NSString *dateString = [dateFormatter stringFromDate:[NSDate date]];
[dateFormatter release];  // delete this line if your project uses ARC
NSLog(@"%@",dateString);

edited Jan 14 '13 at 22:05

Aaron Brager

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answered Sep 20 '10 at 09:03

situee

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For locale reasons, you shouldn't set the date & time formats explicitly. Instead, use the locale-friendly styles: `[dateFormatter setDateStyle:NSDateFormatterMediumStyle]; [dateFormatter setTimeStyle:NSDateFormatterMediumStyle];` – Graham Perks Feb 27 '12 at 04:08
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@GrahamPerks that's not always true. What if, for example, you're generating a date to send to a web api which will need to be parsed by the server? – Will Pragnell Mar 06 '12 at 12:27
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Fair enough. I'm pointing out not to blindly copy the code in the answer; if the string is going to be seen by a user, it needs a tweak. – Graham Perks Mar 07 '12 at 04:42
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Then I'll add my 2 cents as well. Most users do not know how to change system date formats, and a lot of apps do not respect them, so just because the system has a certain format, doesn't mean the user likes it or it is good to use. Just my experience after 10+ years in the GUI design business. – eselk Oct 10 '12 at 18:50

Sebastian Celis · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-08T14:25:41.047

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You are using the wrong method. Instead try descriptionWithCalendarFormat:timeZone:locale:

[[NSDate date] descriptionWithCalendarFormat:@"%Y-%m-%d"
                                    timezone:nil
                                      locale:nil];

Also note that the method is expecting a different format than the one in your question. The full documentation for that can be found here.

EDIT: Though as Mike noted, you really should be using NSDateFormatter. There are some problems with descriptionWithCalendarFormat:timezone:locale: that Apple mentions in the documentation.

edited Jan 08 '11 at 14:25

answered Apr 23 '09 at 20:33

Sebastian Celis

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@NicHubbard: This method is neither deprecated nor depreciated. At least as of 10.6 (the current version of Mac OS X). – Sebastian Celis Nov 05 '10 at 04:51
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But it does seem to be for iOS. Time to be verbose and use NSDateFormatter. – eddieroger Jan 27 '12 at 16:38
This might be available for Mac OS X but not iOS! – Alex Cio Jun 09 '15 at 12:33

Mike Abdullah · Answer 3 · 2011-12-30T00:50:32.340

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Also note that for most cases, NSDateFormatter is to be preferred for its flexibility.

There's also a significant performance benefit to be had from re-use of date formatters in many apps.

edited Dec 30 '11 at 00:50

answered Apr 24 '09 at 14:45

Mike Abdullah

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You are kidding me right? Just look at the docs to see how configurable it is! – Mike Abdullah Dec 29 '11 at 00:15
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I do not kid. I am merely asking which of the many and varied flexibilities which NSDateFormatter has actually has any bearing on the question. – Dan Rosenstark Dec 29 '11 at 02:16

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 23 '09 at 20:36

1

If you don't have NSDate -descriptionWithCalendarFormat:timeZone:locale: available (I don't believe iPhone/Cocoa Touch includes this) you may need to use strftime and monkey around with some C-style strings. You can get the UNIX timestamp from an NSDate using NSDate -timeIntervalSince1970.

answered Apr 23 '09 at 20:36

pix0r

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I'm assuming this is standard Cocoa as descriptionWithLocale does not exist on the iPhone, either. – Sebastian Celis Apr 23 '09 at 20:45
Good point. I did see another similar question that was iphone-related, so I think I'll re-post this response there. – pix0r Apr 23 '09 at 20:47

String description of NSDate

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