Convert NSDate to NSString

Question

How do I convert, NSDate to NSString so that only the year in @"yyyy" format is output to the string?

Answer 1

NSCalendar *calendar = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];
NSDateComponents *components = [calendar components:(NSCalendarUnitYear | NSCalendarUnitMonth | NSCalendarUnitDay) fromDate:myNSDateInstance];
NSInteger year = [components year];
// NSInteger month = [components month];
NSString *yearStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%ld", year];

Answer 2

Define your own utility for format your date required date format for eg.

NSString * stringFromDate(NSDate *date)  
 {   NSDateFormatter *formatter
    [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];  
    [formatter setDateFormat:@"MM ∕ dd ∕ yyyy, hh꞉mm a"];    
    return [formatter stringFromDate:date]; 
}

Answer 3

Hope to add more value by providing the normal formatter including the year, month and day with the time. You can use this formatter for more than just a year

[dateFormat setDateFormat: @"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss zzz"]; 

Answer 4

Just add this extension:

extension NSDate {
    var stringValue: String {
        let formatter = NSDateFormatter()
        formatter.dateFormat = "yourDateFormat"
        return formatter.stringFromDate(self)
    }
}

Answer 5

+(NSString*)date2str:(NSDate*)myNSDateInstance onlyDate:(BOOL)onlyDate{
    NSDateFormatter *formatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    if (onlyDate) {
        [formatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd"];
    }else{
        [formatter setDateFormat: @"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"];
    }

    //Optionally for time zone conversions
    //   [formatter setTimeZone:[NSTimeZone timeZoneWithName:@"..."]];

    NSString *stringFromDate = [formatter stringFromDate:myNSDateInstance];
    return stringFromDate;
}

+(NSDate*)str2date:(NSString*)dateStr{
    if ([dateStr isKindOfClass:[NSDate class]]) {
        return (NSDate*)dateStr;
    }

    NSDateFormatter *dateFormat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    [dateFormat setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd"];
    NSDate *date = [dateFormat dateFromString:dateStr];
    return date;
}

Answer 6

If you don't have NSDate -descriptionWithCalendarFormat:timeZone:locale: available (I don't believe iPhone/Cocoa Touch includes this) you may need to use strftime and monkey around with some C-style strings. You can get the UNIX timestamp from an NSDate using NSDate -timeIntervalSince1970.