Nil NSDate when trying to get date from UTC string in zulu time

Answer 1

I've had this problem also, I'm not sure if it's a API bug within Apple's code, or my lack of understanding, but I've worked around it by using hour offsets in my date strings.

If you change the code in your example to:

NSDateFormatter* df = [[NSDateFormatter alloc]init];
[df setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ"];
NSString* str = @"2009-08-11T06:00:00.000-0700";   // NOTE -0700 is the only change
NSDate* date = [df dateFromString:str];

It will now parse the date string. Of course the -0700 hours is my offset, you'd have to change it to yours. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I think you need to put single quotes around the Z in the format string, because the Z actually means something to the formatter and you want it to represent a literal character instead.

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

Answer 3

this may help you.. the "Z" is a literal for the time zone code. try using "o" (the letter, not zero). The literal "o" means UTC offset. I ran into this a while back, I hope this helped you.

Answer 4

-(NSDate*)dateFromZulu:(NSString*)str {
    if (str == nil) {
        NSLog(@"Error getting date");
        return [NSDate date];
    }

    NSDateFormatter *f = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    [f setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss Z"];
    NSDate *ret = [f dateFromString:[str stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"Z" withString:@" +0000"]];
    [f release];

    if (ret == nil) {
        ret = [NSDate date];
        NSLog(@"Error formatting date (%@)",str);       
    }   
    return ret;     
}

Answer 5

It's been almost a year since Eric's "fix" post. Just confirming that the substitution hack is still necessary for iOS 4.0.x.