Question

I have stored a date in a text file, and I can read it out properly. The output for this string is

“6:00 PM”

Just like that. However, when I do:

//First, set the first datePicker
    NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc]init];

     NSString *breakfastTimeStartLocation = [[NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES) objectAtIndex:0] stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"breakfastTimeStart.txt"];

    NSString *time = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile:breakfastTimeStartLocation encoding:NSUTF16StringEncoding error:nil];
    NSLog(@"Loaded time is %@", time);
    NSDate *startDate = [dateFormatter dateFromString:time];

    NSLog(@"Start Date = %@", startDate);

In this, time returns the "6:00 PM", but startDate returns "(null)"

I must be missing something, why in the world does this not work?

Thanks.

Answer 1

That’s not the right way to init an NSDateFormatter, the designated initializer is initWithDateFormat:allowNaturalLanguage:

Thus:

NSDateFormatter *dateFormat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc]
initWithDateFormat:@"h:mm a" allowNaturalLanguage:NO];