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Asked: 2026-05-25T21:50:55+00:00

I’m using NSDates as keys for an NSDictionary, but for key value coding, I

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I’m using NSDates as keys for an NSDictionary, but for key value coding, I need a string. Importantly, I need it to not change representation across OSes or locales. When I show it to users, I’ll use NSDateFormatter, of course, but internally it must always be the same. What’s the best way get a consistent format as a string?

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  1. Editorial Team

    Use NSDateFormatter and specify the time zone as GMT and the local as “en_US_POSIX”.

    From Apple’s: Data Formatting Guide

    If you’re working with fixed-format dates, you should first set the
    locale of the date formatter to something appropriate for your fixed
    format. In most cases the best locale to choose is en_US_POSIX, a
    locale that’s specifically designed to yield US English results
    regardless of both user and system preferences.

    Another option is to convert a NSDate to a NSTimeInterval with a method such as timeIntervalSince1970 and then to a hexascii value to use as a key. NSDate returns a time value relative to an absolute reference date—the first instant of 1 January 2001, GMT.

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