How to parse a date from a string containing a time zone

Question

I need to parse following string into NSDate.

Example: 2008-09-28T02:48:16+05:30

I tried following but it is not working

NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ"];
NSLog(@"Date=%@",[dateFormatter dateFromString:@"2008-09-28T02:48:16+05:30"]);

It works only if I keep the @"2008-09-28T02:48:16+05:30" to @"2008-09-28T02:48:16+0530".

Answer 1

As far as I know it cannot be done. If you put ZZZZ for example you get "GMT+09:00".

Easiest would be just to remove the colon from the input string.

NSMutableString *input = [[NSMutableString alloc] initWithString:@"2008-09-28T02:48:16+05:30"];
[input replaceCharactersInRange:NSMakeRange(input.length-3, 1) withString:@""];
NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ"];
NSLog(@"Date=%@",[dateFormatter dateFromString:input]);
[input release];