How can I parse / create a date time stamp formatted with fractional seconds UTC timezone (ISO 8601, RFC 3339) in Swift?

Question

Swift 4 • iOS 11.2.1 or later

extension ISO8601DateFormatter {
    convenience init(_ formatOptions: Options) {
        self.init()
        self.formatOptions = formatOptions
    }
}

---

extension Formatter {
    static let iso8601withFractionalSeconds = ISO8601DateFormatter([.withInternetDateTime, .withFractionalSeconds])
}

---

extension Date {
    var iso8601withFractionalSeconds: String { return Formatter.iso8601withFractionalSeconds.string(from: self) }
}

---

extension String {
    var iso8601withFractionalSeconds: Date? { return Formatter.iso8601withFractionalSeconds.date(from: self) }
}

---

Usage:

Date().description(with: .current)  //  Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 10:35:01 PM Brasilia Summer Time"
let dateString = Date().iso8601withFractionalSeconds   //  "2019-02-06T00:35:01.746Z"

if let date = dateString.iso8601withFractionalSeconds {
    date.description(with: .current) // "Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 10:35:01 PM Brasilia Summer Time"
    print(date.iso8601withFractionalSeconds)           //  "2019-02-06T00:35:01.746Z\n"
}

---

iOS 9 • Swift 3 or later

extension Formatter {
    static let iso8601withFractionalSeconds: DateFormatter = {
        let formatter = DateFormatter()
        formatter.calendar = Calendar(identifier: .iso8601)
        formatter.locale = Locale(identifier: "en_US_POSIX")
        formatter.timeZone = TimeZone(secondsFromGMT: 0)
        formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXXXX"
        return formatter
    }()
}

---

Codable Protocol

If you need to encode and decode this format when working with Codable protocol you can create your own custom date encoding/decoding strategies:

extension JSONDecoder.DateDecodingStrategy {
    static let iso8601withFractionalSeconds = custom {
        let container = try $0.singleValueContainer()
        let string = try container.decode(String.self)
        guard let date = Formatter.iso8601withFractionalSeconds.date(from: string) else {
            throw DecodingError.dataCorruptedError(in: container,
                  debugDescription: "Invalid date: " + string)
        }
        return date
    }
}

and the encoding strategy

extension JSONEncoder.DateEncodingStrategy {
    static let iso8601withFractionalSeconds = custom {
        var container = $1.singleValueContainer()
        try container.encode(Formatter.iso8601withFractionalSeconds.string(from: $0))
    }
}

---

Playground Testing

let dates = [Date()]   // ["Feb 8, 2019 at 9:48 PM"]

encoding

let encoder = JSONEncoder()
encoder.dateEncodingStrategy = .iso8601withFractionalSeconds
let data = try! encoder.encode(dates)
print(String(data: data, encoding: .utf8)!)

decoding

let decoder = JSONDecoder()
decoder.dateDecodingStrategy = .iso8601withFractionalSeconds
let decodedDates = try! decoder.decode([Date].self, from: data)  // ["Feb 8, 2019 at 9:48 PM"]

Remember to set the locale to en_US_POSIX as described in Technical Q&A1480. In Swift 3:

let date = Date()
let formatter = DateFormatter()
formatter.locale = Locale(identifier: "en_US_POSIX")
formatter.timeZone = TimeZone(secondsFromGMT: 0)
formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZZZZZ"
print(formatter.string(from: date))

The issue is that if you're on a device which is using a non-Gregorian calendar, the year will not conform to RFC3339/ISO8601 unless you specify the locale as well as the timeZone and dateFormat string.

Or you can use ISO8601DateFormatter to get you out of the weeds of setting locale and timeZone yourself:

let date = Date()
let formatter = ISO8601DateFormatter()
formatter.formatOptions.insert(.withFractionalSeconds)  // this is only available effective iOS 11 and macOS 10.13
print(formatter.string(from: date))

For Swift 2 rendition, see previous revision of this answer.

If you want to use the ISO8601DateFormatter() with a date from a Rails 4+ JSON feed (and don't need millis of course), you need to set a few options on the formatter for it to work right otherwise the the date(from: string) function will return nil. Here's what I'm using:

extension Date {
    init(dateString:String) {
        self = Date.iso8601Formatter.date(from: dateString)!
    }

    static let iso8601Formatter: ISO8601DateFormatter = {
        let formatter = ISO8601DateFormatter()
        formatter.formatOptions = [.withFullDate,
                                          .withTime,
                                          .withDashSeparatorInDate,
                                          .withColonSeparatorInTime]
        return formatter
    }()
}

Here's the result of using the options versus not in a playground screenshot:

Swift 5

If you're targeting iOS 11.0+ / macOS 10.13+, you simply use ISO8601DateFormatter with the withInternetDateTime and withFractionalSeconds options, like so:

let date = Date()

let iso8601DateFormatter = ISO8601DateFormatter()
iso8601DateFormatter.formatOptions = [.withInternetDateTime, .withFractionalSeconds]
let string = iso8601DateFormatter.string(from: date)

// string looks like "2020-03-04T21:39:02.112Z"

Uses ISO8601DateFormatter on iOS10 or newer.

Uses DateFormatter on iOS9 or older.

Swift 4

protocol DateFormatterProtocol {
    func string(from date: Date) -> String
    func date(from string: String) -> Date?
}

extension DateFormatter: DateFormatterProtocol {}

@available(iOS 10.0, *)
extension ISO8601DateFormatter: DateFormatterProtocol {}

struct DateFormatterShared {
    static let iso8601: DateFormatterProtocol = {
        if #available(iOS 10, *) {
            return ISO8601DateFormatter()
        } else {
            // iOS 9
            let formatter = DateFormatter()
            formatter.calendar = Calendar(identifier: .iso8601)
            formatter.locale = Locale(identifier: "en_US_POSIX")
            formatter.timeZone = TimeZone(secondsFromGMT: 0)
            formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXXXX"
            return formatter
        }
    }()
}

To further compliment Andrés Torres Marroquín and Leo Dabus, I have a version that preserves fractional seconds. I can't find it documented anywhere, but Apple truncate fractional seconds to the microsecond (3 digits of precision) on both input and output (even though specified using SSSSSSS, contrary to Unicode tr35-31).

I should stress that this is probably not necessary for most use cases. Dates online do not typically need millisecond precision, and when they do, it is often better to use a different data format. But sometimes one must interoperate with a pre-existing system in a particular way.

Xcode 8/9 and Swift 3.0-3.2

extension Date {
    struct Formatter {
        static let iso8601: DateFormatter = {
            let formatter = DateFormatter()
            formatter.calendar = Calendar(identifier: .iso8601)
            formatter.locale = Locale(identifier: "en_US_POSIX")
            formatter.timeZone = TimeZone(identifier: "UTC")
            formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSSSSXXXXX"
            return formatter
        }()
    }

    var iso8601: String {
        // create base Date format 
         var formatted = DateFormatter.iso8601.string(from: self)

        // Apple returns millisecond precision. find the range of the decimal portion
         if let fractionStart = formatted.range(of: "."),
             let fractionEnd = formatted.index(fractionStart.lowerBound, offsetBy: 7, limitedBy: formatted.endIndex) {
             let fractionRange = fractionStart.lowerBound..<fractionEnd
            // replace the decimal range with our own 6 digit fraction output
             let microseconds = self.timeIntervalSince1970 - floor(self.timeIntervalSince1970)
             var microsecondsStr = String(format: "%.06f", microseconds)
             microsecondsStr.remove(at: microsecondsStr.startIndex)
             formatted.replaceSubrange(fractionRange, with: microsecondsStr)
        }
         return formatted
    }
}

extension String {
    var dateFromISO8601: Date? {
        guard let parsedDate = Date.Formatter.iso8601.date(from: self) else {
            return nil
        }

        var preliminaryDate = Date(timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate: floor(parsedDate.timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate))

        if let fractionStart = self.range(of: "."),
            let fractionEnd = self.index(fractionStart.lowerBound, offsetBy: 7, limitedBy: self.endIndex) {
            let fractionRange = fractionStart.lowerBound..<fractionEnd
            let fractionStr = self.substring(with: fractionRange)

            if var fraction = Double(fractionStr) {
                fraction = Double(floor(1000000*fraction)/1000000)
                preliminaryDate.addTimeInterval(fraction)
            }
        }
        return preliminaryDate
    }
}

In my case I have to convert the DynamoDB - lastUpdated column (Unix Timestamp) to Normal Time.

The initial value of lastUpdated was : 1460650607601 - converted down to 2016-04-14 16:16:47 +0000 via :

   if let lastUpdated : String = userObject.lastUpdated {

                let epocTime = NSTimeInterval(lastUpdated)! / 1000 // convert it from milliseconds dividing it by 1000

                let unixTimestamp = NSDate(timeIntervalSince1970: epocTime) //convert unix timestamp to Date
                let dateFormatter = NSDateFormatter()
                dateFormatter.timeZone = NSTimeZone()
                dateFormatter.locale = NSLocale.currentLocale() // NSLocale(localeIdentifier: "en_US_POSIX")
                dateFormatter.dateFormat =  "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZZZZZ"
                dateFormatter.dateFromString(String(unixTimestamp))

                let updatedTimeStamp = unixTimestamp
                print(updatedTimeStamp)

            }