List of all American holidays as NSDates

Question

I'm seeking a way to get all American holidays as an array of NSDates. Is there a way to implement that?

Answer 1

If you only want US federal Holidays, I wrote this method. You could use these techniques to calculate any holiday though.

-(NSArray *)getUSHolidyas{
    NSDateFormatter *formatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    formatter.dateFormat = @"yyyy";

    NSString *year = [formatter stringFromDate:[NSDate date]];
    formatter.dateFormat = @"M/d/yyyy";

    //Constant Holidays
    NSDate *newYearsDay = [formatter dateFromString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"1/1/%@",year]]; //Use next year for the case where we are adding days near end of december.
    NSDate *indDay = [formatter dateFromString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"7/4/%@",year]];
    NSDate *vetDay = [formatter dateFromString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"11/11/%@",year]];
    NSDate *xmasDay = [formatter dateFromString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"12/25/%@",year]];


    //Variable Holidays
    NSInteger currentYearInt = [[[NSCalendar currentCalendar]
                                 components:NSYearCalendarUnit fromDate:[NSDate date]] year];

    NSDate *mlkDay = [self getTheNth:3 occurrenceOfDay:2 inMonth:1 forYear:currentYearInt];
    NSDate *presDay = [self getTheNth:3 occurrenceOfDay:2 inMonth:2 forYear:currentYearInt];
    NSDate *memDay = [self getTheNth:5 occurrenceOfDay:2 inMonth:5 forYear:currentYearInt]; // Let's see if there are 5 Mondays in May
    NSInteger month = [[[NSCalendar currentCalendar] components:NSYearCalendarUnit fromDate:memDay] month];
    if (month > 5) { //Check that we are still in May
        memDay = [self getTheNth:4 occurrenceOfDay:2 inMonth:5 forYear:currentYearInt];
    }
    NSDate *labDay = [self getTheNth:1 occurrenceOfDay:2 inMonth:9 forYear:currentYearInt];
    NSDate *colDay = [self getTheNth:2 occurrenceOfDay:2 inMonth:10 forYear:currentYearInt];
    NSDate *thanksDay = [self getTheNth:4 occurrenceOfDay:5 inMonth:11 forYear:currentYearInt];

    return @[newYearsDay,mlkDay,presDay,memDay,indDay,labDay,colDay,vetDay,thanksDay,xmasDay];
}

-(NSDate *)getTheNth:(NSInteger)n occurrenceOfDay:(NSInteger)day inMonth:(NSInteger)month forYear:(NSInteger)year{

    NSDateComponents *dateComponents = [[NSDateComponents alloc] init];

    dateComponents.year = year;
    dateComponents.month = month;
    dateComponents.weekday = day; // sunday is 1, monday is 2, ...
    dateComponents.weekdayOrdinal = n; // this means, the first of whatever weekday you specified
    return [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] dateFromComponents:dateComponents];
}

Answer 2

• Here you'll find RSS-feeds with the holidays. It doesn't list year, but in the docs you'll find information how to change date ranges.
• Download it. I would suggest ASIHTTPRequest for that task.
  parse the RSS-feed. you can do so by normal XML-parsing, or you use a specialized parser. MWFeedParser would be one option.
• Save the dates. either by using CoreData, or Event Kit Framework