Question

I’m having problems converting a string into a NSDate object and I’m not sure why.

NSString* tester= @"2012-11-26T10:20:40.187";
NSLog(@"", tester);  //Print the Date String

NSDateFormatter *formatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[formatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy'-'MM'-'dd'T'HH':'mm':'ss'Z'"];
NSDate *date = [formatter dateFromString:tester];           //Store the date

NSDateFormatter *output = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[output setDateStyle:NSDateFormatterMediumStyle];
NSLog(@"DATE OBJECT:%@\nDATE STRING: \"%@\"", [output stringFromDate:date]);     //Print the NSDate object and the string

But all I seem to get is:

DATE OBJECT:(null)
DATE STRING: "2012-11-26T10:20:40.187"

I figure it has something to do with the .187 but I’m not sure. I’m sorry if this is a duplicate but I couldn’t figure this out.

Thank you very much in advance!

Answer 1

The abbrevation for milliseconds is “S”not Z which is TimeZone.
It seems that you have read the correct document where that example is from, but
you missed the link to the Unicode Technical Standard #35.
See NsDateFormatter Docu, search for “Formatters in Mac OS X v10.4 use version tr35-4.”

try that below:

[formatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy'-'MM'-'dd'T'HH':'mm':'ss.SSS"];

See also NSDateFormatter Question