Question

Is there a way to subtract the current date by 5. say if today is 2008-12-9 i need to get the date 5 days back. If we output this, the date should display as 2008-12-4.

How can i code this programatically? or a tutorial that would help

Answer 1

Use NSDateComponents

NSDate *today = [NSDate date];
NSCalendar *gregorian = [[[NSCalendar alloc] initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSGregorianCalendar] autorelease];
NSDateComponents *offsetComponents = [[[NSDateComponents alloc] init] autorelease];
[offsetComponents setDays:-5];

NSDate *fiveDaysAgo = [gregorian dateByAddingComponents:offsetComponents toDate:today options:0];

to convert it to a string with the preferred format, use NSDateFormatter

NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd"];

NSString *formattedDateString = [dateFormatter stringFromDate:fiveDaysAgo];