I am trying to format a date i am getting from twitter using the STTwitter library.
However the code that I've tried so far has not worked.
Code for getting the date from twitter:
NSString *dateString = [status valueForKey:@"created_at"];
This returns the time, date, time zone and year in which the tweet was made which looks messy.
I tried using the following code to convert this and make it neater:
NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter =[[NSDateFormatter alloc]init];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"MMddHHmm"];
NSDate *dateFromString = [dateFormatter dateFromString:dateString];
NSLog(@"%@", dateFromString);
dateFormatter =[[NSDateFormatter alloc]init];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"dd MMMM' at 'hhmm a"];
NSString *mydate=[dateFormatter stringFromDate:dateFromString];
And then try to put the result in a text label:
cell.detailTextLabel.text = my date;
Ive tried many different variations of the Date Formatter but none have worked and i have no idea why.
Thanks for your help :)
The date format you are using is not even close the date string used in the result, which is something like Fri Nov 18 20:35:49 +0000 2011
.
NSString *dateStr = @"Fri Nov 18 20:35:49 +0000 2011";
NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter= [NSDateFormatter new];
dateFormatter.locale = [[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:@"en_US_POSIX"];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss Z yyyy"];
NSDate *date = [dateFormatter dateFromString:dateStr];
The real trick is in the locale used, since the date is localized in english.
STTwitter has a category for that:
NSString *s = [tweet valueForKey:@"created_at"];
NSDate *date = [[NSDateFormatter stTwitterDateFormatter] dateFromString:s];
I created a gist with Swift implementation of it:
https://gist.github.com/appzzman/62339fcd10bbe8fce256 It takes Twitter date and lets you specify the output format of the date.
import UIKit
func parseTwitterDate(twitterDate:String, outputDateFormat:String)->String?{
let formatter = NSDateFormatter()
formatter.dateFormat = "EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss Z yyyy"
var indate = formatter.dateFromString(twitterDate)
var outputFormatter = NSDateFormatter()
outputFormatter.dateFormat = "hh:mm a dd:MM:yy"
var outputDate:String?
if let d = indate {
outputDate = outputFormatter.stringFromDate(d)
}
return outputDate;
}
var str = "Wed Sep 02 19:38:03 +0000 2009"
var outputDateFormat = "hh:mm a dd:MM:yy"
parseTwitterDate(str, outputDateFormat)