NSDate: Extract Date ONLY

Question

I'm using the code below to extract the date only from NSDate. What am I doing wrong?

    NSDate* now = [NSDate date];
    NSLog(@"Now Date %@",now);
    NSDateFormatter *format = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    format.dateFormat = @"dd-MM-yyyy";
    NSString *stringDate = [format stringFromDate:now];
    NSDate *todaysDate = [format dateFromString:stringDate];
    NSLog(@"Today's Date without Time %@", todaysDate);

Log:

2014-06-21 12:27:23.284 App[69727:f03] Now Date 2014-06-21 19:27:23 +0000
2014-06-21 12:27:23.285 App[69727:f03] Today's Date without Time 2014-06-21 07:00:00 +0000

Why am I getting: 07:00:00 +0000 at the end?

I would like to get an NSDate in the in the following format:

2014-06-21 00:00:00 +0000

Having 0's for time, seconds, etc. is not important.

Answer 1

NSDateFormatter *dateFormat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[dateFormat setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd"];
NSDate *now = [[NSDate alloc] init];
NSString *theDate = [dateFormat stringFromDate:now];

should work

Answer 2

Another solution: using NSCalendar:

NSCalendar *cal = [[NSCalendar alloc] initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSGregorianCalendar];
[cal setTimeZone:[NSTimeZone timeZoneForSecondsFromGMT:1]]; // I'm in Paris (+1)
NSDateComponents *comps = [cal components:NSCalendarUnitYear | NSCalendarUnitMonth | NSCalendarUnitDay fromDate:[NSDate date]];

comps.hour = 0;
comps.minute = 0;
comps.second = 0;

NSDate *newDate = [cal dateFromComponents:comps ];

NSLog(@"date: %@",newDate);

Adjust timezone param, you will receive something like: date: 2014-06-21 00:00:00 +0000

Answer 3

If you don't care about the time, NSDate is not the right storage structure for you. An NSDate represents a specific moment in time - there is no NSDate without a time. What you're seeing is the logged description of an NSDate, which is the full printout in GMT.

If you want to keep track of the year, month and day only, then use NSDateComponents instead, and extract only the components you are interested in. You can then use the components object and pass it around as you like.

Answer 4

NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"dd-MM-yyyy"];
NSString *strDate = [dateFormatter stringFromDate:[NSDate date]];

With the code above, the NSDate object will HAVE time. But the string will be a date only text.