Question

I have a few custom UIViewControllers in my app which need to know the string returned of an NSDate. I could copy and paste the same code between these classes, but that’s obviously terrible practise. It’s also probably not good to put it in 1 class as a method, then have another class add this class to take advantage of it’s method. It seems like a messy thing to do. So what would you recommend i do?

To clarify – I need a method which is given an NSDate and returns a string, for use in several other classes.

Answer 1

Sounds like you either need a function, rather than a method:

//Helpers.h

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

NSString * makeAStringFromThisDateSomehow(NSDate * d);

---

//Helpers.m

#import "Helpers.h"

NSString * makeAStringFromThisDateSomehow(NSDate * d)
{
    // Body
    // of
    // your
    // function
}

Or to make a category on NSDate to do what you need:

//NSDate+AndrewsCategory.h

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface NSDate(AndrewsCategory)
- (NSString *)Andrew_MakeAStringSomehow;
@end

---

//NSDate+AndrewsCategory.m
#import "NSDate+AndrewsCategory.h"

@implementation NSDate(AndrewsCategory)
- (NSString *)Andrew_MakeAStringSomehow {
    // Body
    // of
    // your
    // method
}

@end

Note the stupid prefix on the method name. That’s important to keep your method names from colliding with other method names on framework classes. Usually you would use initials: your company’s, yours, or the project’s.

In either case, just import the relevant header where you need to use the function or method, and you should be hunky-dory.