How to create an NSDate date object?

Question

How can I create an NSDate from the day, month and year? There don't seem to be any methods to do this and they have removed the class method dateWithString (why would they do that?!).

Answer 1

You could write a category for this. I did that, this is how the code looks:

//  NSDateCategory.h

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface NSDate (MBDateCat) 

+ (NSDate *)dateWithYear:(NSInteger)year month:(NSInteger)month day:(NSInteger)day;

@end



//  NSDateCategory.m

#import "NSDateCategory.h"

@implementation NSDate (MBDateCat)

+ (NSDate *)dateWithYear:(NSInteger)year month:(NSInteger)month day:(NSInteger)day {
    NSCalendar *calendar = [[[NSCalendar alloc] initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSGregorianCalendar] autorelease];
    NSDateComponents *components = [[[NSDateComponents alloc] init] autorelease];
    [components setYear:year];
    [components setMonth:month];
    [components setDay:day];
    return [calendar dateFromComponents:components];
}

@end

Use it like this: NSDate *aDate = [NSDate dateWithYear:2010 month:5 day:12];

Answer 2

You can use NSDateComponents:

NSDateComponents *comps = [[NSDateComponents alloc] init];
[comps setDay:6];
[comps setMonth:5];
[comps setYear:2004];
NSCalendar *gregorian = [[NSCalendar alloc]
    initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSCalendarIdentifierGregorian];
NSDate *date = [gregorian dateFromComponents:comps];
[comps release];