Question

I know this question has been asked before (most notably here: Converting NSString to NSDate (and back again)), but I am having difficulties. I am using an RSS feed parser which returns a date in this format:

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:39:00 -0800

I wish to convert it to this format:

Nov. 23 2012

WIth a separate time formatted like this:

3:39:00 PM

Here is the code I currently have:

NSString *RSSDate1=@"Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:39:00 -0800";
NSDateFormatter *RSSDateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[RSSDateFormatter setDateFormat:@"D, d M Y H:i:s O"];
NSDate *dateFromString = [[NSDate alloc] init];
dateFromString = [RSSDateFormatter dateFromString:RSSDate1];
[RSSDateFormatter release];
NSDateFormatter *RSSDateFormatter2=[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[RSSDateFormatter2 setDateStyle:NSDateFormatterShortStyle];
UIAlertView *dateAlert=[[UIAlertView alloc] init];
[dateAlert setTitle:[RSSDateFormatter2 stringFromDate:dateFromString]];
[dateAlert addButtonWithTitle:@"Dismiss"];
[dateAlert show];
[dateAlert release];

Right now, the string is returning nil, so I’m betting my formatting is off. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

Change it to,

NSString *RSSDate1 = @"Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:39:00 -0800";
NSDateFormatter *RSSDateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[RSSDateFormatter setDateFormat:@"EEE, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss zzzzz"];

NSDate *dateFromString = [[NSDate alloc] init];
dateFromString = [RSSDateFormatter dateFromString:RSSDate1];
NSLog(@"dateFromString = %@", dateFromString);    
[RSSDateFormatter release];

NSDateFormatter *RSSDateFormatter2 = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[RSSDateFormatter2 setDateFormat:@"MMM dd, yyyy hh:mm aaa"];
NSLog(@"dateToString = %@", [RSSDateFormatter2 stringFromDate:dateFromString]);

UIAlertView *dateAlert = [[UIAlertView alloc] init];
[dateAlert setTitle:[RSSDateFormatter2 stringFromDate:dateFromString]];
[dateAlert addButtonWithTitle:@"Dismiss"];
[dateAlert show];
[dateAlert release];

Output:

dateToString = Nov 23, 2012 03:39 PM

Note that the format for “Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:39:00 -0800” is “EEE, dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss zzzzz” and for “Nov 23, 2012 03:39 PM” it is “MMM dd, yyyy hh:mm aaa”. Each letters in the format represents the corresponding word in date string. For eg:- EEE is for Fri, aaa for PM etc.. Check this for more information on how to do this formatting.