Question

I am attempting convert this string “2012-02-05T00:00:00+00:00” into a more attractive, nicely formatted string like “Tuesday March 5, 2012.

I have an example that I’m working from:

NSString *dateStr = @"20081122";

// Convert string to date object
NSDateFormatter *dateFormat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[dateFormat setDateFormat:@"yyyyMMdd"];
NSDate *date = [dateFormat dateFromString:dateStr];  

// Convert date object to desired output format
[dateFormat setDateFormat:@"EEEE MMMM d, YYYY"];
dateStr = [dateFormat stringFromDate:date];
NSLog(@"date: %@", dateStr);
[dateFormat release];

How would I accommodate for the date format “2012-02-05T00:00:00+00:00” using similar code above?

Thank you.

Answer 1

When i see your time “2012-02-05T00:00:00+00:00”, I think you are printing a “NSDate” into your console. In that time “2012-02-05” is a date and “T00:00:00+00:00” is a time. So when you need to use date like this,

NSString *dateStr = @"2012-02-05";

you have to format like this

[dateFormat setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd"];

If you want to convert the date component into as you liked try this

NSString *dateStr = @"2012-02-05";

// Convert string to date object
NSDateFormatter *dateFormat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[dateFormat setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd"];
NSDate *date = [dateFormat dateFromString:dateStr];  

// Convert date object to desired output format
[dateFormat setDateFormat:@"EEEE MMMM d, YYYY"];
dateStr = [dateFormat stringFromDate:date];  
NSLog(@"%@",dateStr);

You can even do like this to convert the current date into as you like.

// Convert date object to desired output format
[dateFormat setDateFormat:@"EEEE MMMM d, YYYY"];
dateStr = [dateFormat stringFromDate:[NSDate date]]; //for current date  
NSLog(@"%@",dateStr);