Question

I need to make a calendar in which the user can scroll between several weeks. The first and last day of the week will be displayed like (e.g.) “June 4 – June 10”.

Now I knew from the beginning that I’d need NSDate and NSCalendar, and indeed I managed to get the first and last day of just thist week, but it looks extremely cumbersome and I am sure there needs to be an easier method, as I need to get the dates for several more coming and past weeks.
This is my code which gives the day and month of the first and last day of the current week:

    NSDate *today = [NSDate date];
    NSCalendar* cal = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];
    NSDateComponents* comp = [cal components:(NSWeekdayCalendarUnit|NSMonthCalendarUnit|NSWeekCalendarUnit|NSYearCalendarUnit|NSDayCalendarUnit|NSHourCalendarUnit) fromDate:[NSDate date]];

    NSDate *beginOfWeek = [today dateByAddingTimeInterval: -1*([comp weekday]-2)*24*3600];
    NSDate *endOfWeek = [today dateByAddingTimeInterval:(7-[comp weekday]+2)*24*3600];

    NSLog(@"beginWeekDay=%d\n",[[cal components:(NSWeekdayCalendarUnit|NSMonthCalendarUnit|NSWeekCalendarUnit|NSDayCalendarUnit) fromDate: beginOfWeek] day]);
    NSLog(@"endWeekDay=%d\n",[[cal components:(NSWeekdayCalendarUnit|NSMonthCalendarUnit|NSWeekCalendarUnit|NSDayCalendarUnit) fromDate: endOfWeek] day]);
    NSLog(@"beginWeekmonth=%d\n",[[cal components:(NSWeekdayCalendarUnit|NSMonthCalendarUnit|NSWeekCalendarUnit|NSDayCalendarUnit) fromDate: beginOfWeek] month]);
    NSLog(@"endWeekmonth=%d\n",[[cal components:(NSWeekdayCalendarUnit|NSMonthCalendarUnit|NSWeekCalendarUnit|NSDayCalendarUnit) fromDate: endOfWeek] month]);

Answer 1

I found this, which may be helpful to you: http://www.cocoanetics.com/2009/11/add-one-week-skip-weekend/

- (NSDate *)addWeekToDateAndSkipWeekend:(NSDate *)now {
int daysToAdd = 6; // we'll add the 7th later

// set up date components
NSDateComponents *components = [[[NSDateComponents alloc] init] autorelease];
[components setDay:daysToAdd];

// create a calendar
NSCalendar *gregorian = [[[NSCalendar alloc] initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSGregorianCalendar] autorelease];

NSDate *newDate = [gregorian dateByAddingComponents:components toDate:now options:0];

[components setDay:1]; // reuse to skip single days
NSDateComponents *newDateComps; // new componets to get weekday

// do always executed once, so we add the 7th day here
do
{
    // add one day
    newDate = [gregorian dateByAddingComponents:components toDate:newDate options:0];
    newDateComps = [gregorian components:NSWeekdayCalendarUnit fromDate:newDate];

    // repeat if the date is Saturday (7) or Sunday (1)
    NSLog(@"weekday: %d", [newDateComps weekday]);
} while (([newDateComps weekday]==7)||([newDateComps weekday]==1));

return newDate;
}

Theoretically, you run this in a for loop with [NSDate date] and you will get the 7th day returned, you would then run the returned 7th day through this and get the next..etc..

May need minor alteration, to remove the check for Saturday+Sunday if you don’t need it.

Hope this helps !