Question

I trying to convert a NSString that looks like this:

@"00:00 15 September 2012"

to a NSDate.

I can’t figure out what the unicode format needs to be. I am trying this:

@"HH:mm dd MMMM YYYY"
@"HH:mmddMMMMYYYY"

I’ve been trying to follow the rules here but to no avail.

---

EDIT:

Paul’s answer does work (except for military time problem). I was trying to use Apple’s example of how to create a format template like so:

NSString *formatString = [NSDateFormatter dateFormatFromTemplate:@"hh:mm dd MMM yyyy" options:0
                                                              locale:[NSLocale currentLocale]];

NSDateFormatter* fmt = [NSDateFormatter new];
[fmt setDateFormat:formatString];

This causes everything to spit out null.

However, if I do this:

NSDateFormatter* fmt = [NSDateFormatter new];
[fmt setDateFormat:@"hh:mm dd MMM yyyy"];

All is well in the world. My only guess is that NSLocale doesn’t work in simulator?

Answer 1

You wasn’t far off, you need something like:

NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
dateFormatter.dateFormat = @"HH:mm dd MMM yyyy";
dateFormatter.timeZone = [[NSTimeZone alloc] initWithName:@"GMT"];

NSLog(@"%@", [dateFormatter dateFromString:@"00:00 15 September 2012"]);