How to convert date/time from GMT to local timezone

Question

I'm getting a date time string from a JSON response that looks like this:

2019-07-18 13:39:05

This time is GMT. How can I convert this to locale time zone, in my case Eastern with day light savings.

func convertDateFormat(date:String) -> String {

    let dateFormatterGet = DateFormatter()
    dateFormatterGet.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"

    let dateFormatterPrint = DateFormatter()
    dateFormatterPrint.dateStyle = .long
    dateFormatterPrint.timeStyle = .short

    let date = dateFormatterGet.date(from: date)

    return dateFormatterPrint.string(from: date!)

}

In the code above the result should be July 18, 2019 at 9:39 AM

Thanks

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 18 '19 at 14:21

The input is a fixed-format date string in GMT, therefore dateFormatterGet must have

the locale set to "en_US_POSIX" (otherwise it can default to the user's locale settings, compare What is the best way to deal with the NSDateFormatter locale "feechur"?), and
the time zone set to GMT (otherwise it defaults to the user's time zone):

Example:

let dateFormatterGet = DateFormatter()
dateFormatterGet.locale = Locale(identifier: "en_US_POSIX")
dateFormatterGet.timeZone = TimeZone(secondsFromGMT: 0)
dateFormatterGet.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"

Everything else should be OK: you don't set a time zone for dateFormatterPrint so that the user's time zone is used.

Thanks for the quick response. – Paul S. Jul 18 '19 at 14:36 — Paul S., Jul 18 '19 at 14:36

How to convert date/time from GMT to local timezone

1 Answers1