objective-c: converting date string into day of the week + month name

Question

A beginner's problem, but I was wondering if anyone could help me with this:

I need to set four strings according to a string which contains a certain date (e.g. @"Apr 7, 2011"):

• a string which will take the day of the week (abbreviated: Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun): e.g. @"Thu"
• a string which will take the day, e.g. @"7"
• a string which will take the month, e.g. @"April"
• and a string which will take the year, e.g. @"2011"

---

So far, I found this:

    NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[dateFormatter setTimeStyle:NSDateFormatterNoStyle];
[dateFormatter setDateStyle:NSDateFormatterMediumStyle];

NSDate *date = [NSDate dateWithTimeIntervalSinceReferenceDate:118800];

NSLocale *usLocale = [[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:@"en_US"];
[dateFormatter setLocale:usLocale];

NSLog(@"Date for locale %@: %@",
      [[dateFormatter locale] localeIdentifier], [dateFormatter stringFromDate:date]);
// Output:
// Date for locale en_US: Jan 2, 2001

---

So this would give me a certain formatted date. I was wondering, however, how I can access certain parts of this date. There is the - (NSArray *)weekdaySymbols but I have no idea how to work this one and the documentation is quite frugal.

Any hints from calendar experts would be very welcome.

---

EDIT:

I guess this is part of the solution:

    NSLocale *gbLocale = [[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:@"en_GB"];
NSString *gbFormatString = [NSDateFormatter dateFormatFromTemplate:@"EdMMM" options:0 locale:gbLocale];
NSLog(@"gbFormatterString: %@", gbFormatString);
// Output: gbFormatterString: EEE d MMM, e.g. Thu 7 Apr

Answer 1

n.evermind,

You're going to need something like this:

    NSDate *date = [NSDate date];
    NSDateFormatter *formatter = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
    [formatter setDateFormat:@"MMM dd, yyy"];
    date = [formatter dateFromString:@"Apr 7, 2011"];
    NSLog(@"%@", [formatter stringFromDate:date]);

    NSCalendar *calendar = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];
    NSInteger units = NSYearCalendarUnit | NSMonthCalendarUnit | NSDayCalendarUnit | NSWeekdayCalendarUnit;
    NSDateComponents *components = [calendar components:units fromDate:date];
    NSInteger year = [components year];
    NSInteger month=[components month];       // if necessary
    NSInteger day = [components day];
    NSInteger weekday = [components weekday]; // if necessary

    NSDateFormatter *weekDay = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
    [weekDay setDateFormat:@"EEE"];

    NSDateFormatter *calMonth = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
    [calMonth setDateFormat:@"MMMM"];

    NSLog(@"%@ %i %@ %i", [weekDay stringFromDate:date], day, [calMonth stringFromDate:date], year );

output

2011-04-07 12:49:23.519 test[7296:207] Apr 07, 2011
2011-04-07 12:49:23.521 test[7296:207] Thu 7 April 2011

Cheers, Jordan