How to make NSDate() print the current local time

Question

I have tried this in playgrounds (I show in comments what it's printed):

extension NSDate {

    static func currentDate() -> NSDate {
        let calendar = NSCalendar.currentCalendar()
        calendar.timeZone = NSTimeZone.localTimeZone()
        calendar.locale = NSLocale.currentLocale()

        let components = calendar.components([.Year, .Month, .Day], fromDate: NSDate())
        components.hour = 00
        components.minute = 00
        components.second = 00

        return calendar.dateFromComponents(components)! // "Dec 29, 2015, 12:00 AM"
    }
}

print(NSDate.currentDate()) // "2015-12-28 22:00:00 +0000

Anyone has an idea what is going on here ?

I just want the current date (year/month/day). I made this extension because I had problems with NSDate(), it was off by 2 hours (showing 11.24 am, instead of 1.24 pm)

you can always use description with locale to print a different time http://stackoverflow.com/a/28405039/2303865 — Leo Dabus, Dec 29 '15 at 11:30
The idea is that I have some objects added to tableView which also contains a NSDate attribute. When the day changes, lets say is 12.05 am, and I add an element, I want to have the current date which will 30, but with the current code it will still have date day 29 becasue its 2 hours off. I dont just want to print it correctly. — Adrian, Dec 29 '15 at 11:35
@Adrian: NSDate is an absolute point in time (stored internally as seconds since January 1, 2001 GMT), and knows *nothing* about your time zone etc. To interpret an NSDate according to your time zone, you have to use NSCalendar and NSDateComponents, or convert it to a string with NSDateFormatter. — Martin R, Dec 29 '15 at 11:38
@MartinR: that's what I tried to use in my code. currentTimezone and currentLocale. Not sure if its the correct way. — Adrian, Dec 29 '15 at 11:39
@Adrian: But you are converting the date components back to NSDate, and printing an NSDate uses its description method, and that prints the time using a default format in UTC. — Martin R, Dec 29 '15 at 11:40
@MartinR: Yes because I am retrieving data based on NSDate's. So I am still puzzle, this mean that I will always have incorrect data ? — Adrian, Dec 29 '15 at 11:45
My question wasn't correct. Maybe I should make a new one, because here I just asked how to print it, but I have a different problem :) — Adrian, Dec 29 '15 at 11:46
I don't know where your problem is. I assume that you are in the GMT+2 time zone. "2015-12-28 22:00:00 +0000" is *exactly* the same point in time as ""2015-12-29 00:00:00 +0200", i.e. the start of Dec 29 in your time zone. — Martin R, Dec 29 '15 at 11:47
Do you have time to chat to explain my issue or just post another question ? — Adrian, Dec 29 '15 at 11:48
Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/99195/discussion-between-adrian-and-martin-r). — Adrian, Dec 29 '15 at 11:48

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 29 '15 at 11:27

1

The NSDate() in Swift and [NSDate date] in Objective-C both holds the UTC date. You can not change it behaviour.

However you can create a formatter and convert to desired locale and date format and store the date as string value.

let dateFormatter = NSDateFormatter()
dateFormatter.dateFormat = /*your desired format*/
let date = dateFormatter.dateFromString(/*your date string*/)

answered Dec 29 '15 at 11:27

Anoop Vaidya

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But If I add some elements to table view which have a NSDate attribute at 12.30 am, the date will still be 29 December not 30 December, because of my problem. – Adrian Dec 29 '15 at 11:37

How to make NSDate() print the current local time

1 Answers1