Convert NSDate to NSString

Question

How about...

NSDateFormatter *formatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[formatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy"];

//Optionally for time zone conversions
[formatter setTimeZone:[NSTimeZone timeZoneWithName:@"..."]];

NSString *stringFromDate = [formatter stringFromDate:myNSDateInstance];

//unless ARC is active
[formatter release];

Swift 4.2 :

func stringFromDate(_ date: Date) -> String {
    let formatter = DateFormatter()
    formatter.dateFormat = "dd MMM yyyy HH:mm" //yyyy
    return formatter.string(from: date)
}

I don't know how we all missed this: localizedStringFromDate:dateStyle:timeStyle:

NSString *dateString = [NSDateFormatter localizedStringFromDate:[NSDate date] 
                                                      dateStyle:NSDateFormatterShortStyle 
                                                      timeStyle:NSDateFormatterFullStyle];
NSLog(@"%@",dateString);

outputs '13/06/12 00:22:39 GMT+03:00'

Hope to add more value by providing the normal formatter including the year, month and day with the time. You can use this formatter for more than just a year

[dateFormat setDateFormat: @"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss zzz"]; 

there are a number of NSDate helpers on the web, I tend to use:

https://github.com/billymeltdown/nsdate-helper/

Readme extract below:

  NSString *displayString = [NSDate stringForDisplayFromDate:date];

This produces the following kinds of output:

‘3:42 AM’ – if the date is after midnight today
‘Tuesday’ – if the date is within the last seven days
‘Mar 1’ – if the date is within the current calendar year
‘Mar 1, 2008’ – else ;-)

In Swift:

var formatter = NSDateFormatter()
formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy"
var dateString = formatter.stringFromDate(YourNSDateInstanceHERE)

  NSDateFormatter *dateformate=[[NSDateFormatter alloc]init];
  [dateformate setDateFormat:@"yyyy"]; // Date formater
  NSString *date = [dateformate stringFromDate:[NSDate date]]; // Convert date to string
  NSLog(@"date :%@",date);

If you don't have NSDate -descriptionWithCalendarFormat:timeZone:locale: available (I don't believe iPhone/Cocoa Touch includes this) you may need to use strftime and monkey around with some C-style strings. You can get the UNIX timestamp from an NSDate using NSDate -timeIntervalSince1970.