I have some dates represented as strings. These strings correspond to a date format of a particular locale and calendar system, i.e. Gregorian, Jewish, etc.
In theory, I could try to use NSDateFormatter for this, but: 1) How does NSDateFormatter know in which calendar system the string date is expressed?
2) How does NSDateFormatter know what date format that string is? i.e. some folks may provide first the month, than the day, and then the year. Others may provide first the year, then the month, and then the day. And German folks provide first the day, then the month, and then the year. Conclusion: Safely to assume that every country does that very different. In the backyards of timbuktu they may provide first the month, then the year, and then the day. Nobody knows except their locale object, hopefully. And I dont know about other calendar systems. Maybe they provide moon phases in dates as well. Who knows.
Can I tell NSDateFormatter what calendar system to use, and what date format to use? Or can I feed it with the user's locale to just determine what kind of date format he/she will enter?