Need information on printing [NSDate date]

Question

When I am printing the date

//getting the current date and time
self.date = [NSDate date];
NSLog(@"%@",date);

The date which I am getting is correct, but there is a delay in time by 6 hrs. My system time is correct.

[NDate date] method returns you current date and time based on the device's locale. If you want to set to different locale, you have to set it manually with "descriptionWithLocale" which returns a string representation of the receiver using the given locale. — ldindu, Jul 06 '13 at 11:44

score 16 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 06 '13 at 09:44

16

try this

NSLocale* currentLoc = [NSLocale currentLocale];
NSLog(@"%@",[[NSDate date] descriptionWithLocale:currentLoc]);

edited Jul 06 '13 at 09:44

Rok Jarc

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answered Nov 21 '12 at 05:17

Pratyusha Terli

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[[NSDate date] descriptionWithLocale: [NSLocale currentLocale ]] make the one-liner easier to copy – gjpc Jan 08 '14 at 22:02
2

nowadays you should use [NSLocale autoupdatingCurrentLocale] – malhal Feb 09 '16 at 18:11

Shamsudheen TK · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-08T06:41:19.950

11

Make use of NSDateFormatter

NSDate *today = [NSDate date];

//Create the dateformatter object
NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];

//Set the required date format
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"];

//Get the string date
NSString *dateString = [dateFormatter stringFromDate:today];

//Display on the console
NSLog(dateString);

edited Jan 08 '16 at 06:41

answered Nov 21 '12 at 05:18

Shamsudheen TK

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Note that the dateFormatString is wrong. It will print the month as part of the time as well. And SS stands for something else as well. It should probably be `@"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"` – luk2302 Jul 05 '15 at 17:52
@luk2302: thank you very much. I have updated my answer. – Shamsudheen TK Jan 08 '16 at 06:41

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 21 '12 at 09:43

Logging an NSDate in the debugger is somewhat misleading as it gives you a calendar day and time for a particular time zone - UTC / GMT. However, NSDate has no inherent time zone or any inherent relationship to how humans perceive and think about dates at all. Instead, it is a timestamp. Classes like NSDateComponents, NSTimeZone, NSDateFormatter, and so on all exist to provide human context and formatting.

So what you see is the timestamp formatted to that particular format and UTC time zone, which is how NSDate will always appear when printed in the debugger or the console. If you were to calculate the time zone offset between UTC and your own time zone, you'd find that the date represents the time stamp you gave it, and not one however many hours off.

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

0

you can set current time zone for customizing your date format.

This link can help: https://stackoverflow.com/a/7213629/456471

edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

Community

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answered Nov 21 '12 at 05:17

Danil

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 21 '12 at 05:19

The default date string representation is probably formatting the date as UTC, rather than your local time zone (the exact format that it will use is not defined, and may change from release to release, so you shouldn't rely on it). You should use the NSDateFormatter class if you need to format a date in a particular format (or with a particular time zone, including the local time zone); see the Data Formatting Guide and the NSDateFormatter Class Reference for more information.

Need information on printing [NSDate date]

5 Answers5