Question

I’m using this code to convert a string to a date :

+(NSDate*)dateTexteFromString:(NSString*)someString
{
    NSDateFormatter *df = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    NSLocale *locale = [[[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:@"en_US_POSIX"] autorelease];
    [df setLocale:locale];
    [df setDateFormat:@"EEE, dd MMM yyyy hh:mm a zzz"];
    NSDate *myDate = [df dateFromString: someString];
    [df release];
    return myDate;
}

It works fine for most dates, but this one drives me crazy:

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:28 am MSD

(Moscow). What should I do? And is there other unrecognized timezone like this one? I can’t try all timezones over the world 🙁

Answer 1

Use MSKS instead of MSD or find what you need by doing this:

1. First find the available time zone names using

   NSLog(@"%@", [NSTimeZone knownTimeZoneNames]);
   

2. Then copy the name that you want (i copied Europe/Moscow) and use this code to find the abbreviation

   NSTimeZone *timeZone = [NSTimeZone timeZoneWithName:@"Europe/Moscow"];
   NSLog(@"%@",[timeZone abbreviation]);