NSDateFormatter problem

Question

hey i have my date as "7/30/2010". How do i print it as only the Month and Date ie. "7/30" I tried using NSFormatter but it prints my current date and not which is present in my database.

Answer 1

You could add some utility methods for NSDate.

Here is a sample header:

@interface NSDate (Utilities)

+ (NSDate *) customDateForString:(NSString *)dateString;
+ (NSDateFormatter *) customDateFormatter;

@end

The implementation:

@implementation NSDate (Utilities)

static NSDateFormatter *customDateFormatter = nil;

+ (NSDateFormatter *) customDateFormatter {
    // Example: 7/30
    if (!customDateFormatter) {
        customDateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
        [customDateFormatter setFormatterBehavior:NSDateFormatterBehavior10_4];
        [customDateFormatter setLocale:[[[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:@"en_US"] autorelease]];

        // cf. http://unicode.org/reports/tr35/tr35-6.html#Date_Format_Patterns
        [customDateFormatter setDateFormat:@"M/d"];
    }  
    return customDateFormatter;
}

+ (NSDate *) customDateForString:(NSString *)dateString {
    return [[self customDateFormatter] dateFromString:dateString];
}

@end

Whenever you need to parse a date string, you would call it like so:

NSLog(@"Parsed date: %@", [NSDate customDateForString:@"7/30/2010"]); // Parsed date: 7/30

Answer 2

NSDate *date = dateFromYourDataBase;
NSDateFormatter *formatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[formatter setDateFormat:@"M/dd"];
NSLog(@"%@", [formatter stringFromDate:date]);
[formatter release];