Getting localized date range string from two NSDates

8
votes

I'm running into an issue when it comes to taking two NSDates and displaying a localized string for the range.

For example, say my dates are on July 7 and July 9. I would need the following localized strings:

  • EN: July 7-9
  • FR: 7-9 Juliet
  • ES: 7-9 Julio
  • DE: 7. bis. 9. Juli

Obviously using NSString stringWithFormat: isn't going to work here. For the sake of simplicity, let's not even get into the case where your range is two separate months. I know how to get a formatted string for each date but it's formatting it in a range that is getting me.

Is there way of using an NSDateFormatter to get this? The more I look around, the more I think I'm going to need to have a switch for each locale.

EDIT: To clarify, I only need the date range for the user's locale. I don't need all of them at the same time.

3
iosobjective-clocalizationnsdatensdateformatter
possible duplicate of Cocoa - Localized string from NSDate, NSCalendarDate – rishi
@rishi That's not a duplicate of this question. – rmaddy
without changing locale you want to fetch the localized date? – rishi
@rishi Not just the localized date. I need to know the localized format for displaying a date range. For example, if I am trying to display a date from today (July 8, 2014) until Saturday (July 12, 2014) I would get "July 8-12" in EN. In DE I would get "8. bis. 12. Juli". Since each locale expresses date ranges differently, I can't just format it like [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ - %@", beginDate, endDate]. – AdamPro13

3 Answers

10
votes

After further research it looks like in iOS 8.0+ you can use NSDateIntervalFormatter to do this. That doesn't help me now but it's comforting to know it's on the way.

10
votes

To elaborate on Adam's answer with some sample code:

let formatter = NSDateIntervalFormatter()
formatter.dateStyle = NSDateIntervalFormatterStyle.ShortStyle
formatter.timeStyle = NSDateIntervalFormatterStyle.NoStyle
let dateRangeStr = formatter.stringFromDate(startDate, toDate: endDate)
5
votes

If you want to drop the year information you need to explicitly set the dateTemplate argument in NSDateIntervalFormatter.

So only with this solution you will get the result July 7-9 without date.

Objective-C

NSDate *startDate = [NSDate new];
NSDate *endDate = [[NSDate new] dateByAddingTimeInterval:10000];
NSDateIntervalFormatter *df = [[NSDateIntervalFormatter alloc] init];
df.dateTemplate = @"MMMd";

NSString *detailedString = [df stringFromDate:startDate toDate:
    [trip.startDate dateByAddingNumberOfDays:endDate]];

Swift

let df = DateIntervalFormatter()
df.dateTemplate = "MMMd"
let stringDate = df.string(from: Date(), to: Date().addingTimeInterval(10000))

Documentation is straightforward: 

If the range smaller than the resolution specified by the dateTemplate, a single date format will be produced. If the range is larger than the format specified by the dateTemplate, a locale-specific fallback will be used to format the items missing from the pattern.

 For example, if the range is 2010-03-04 07:56 - 2010-03-04 19:56 (12 hours)
 - The pattern jm will produce
    for en_US, "7:56 AM - 7:56 PM"
    for en_GB, "7:56 - 19:56"
 - The pattern MMMd will produce
    for en_US, "Mar 4"
    for en_GB, "4 Mar"
 If the range is 2010-03-04 07:56 - 2010-03-08 16:11 (4 days, 8 hours, 15 minutes)
 - The pattern jm will produce
    for en_US, "3/4/2010 7:56 AM - 3/8/2010 4:11 PM"
    for en_GB, "4/3/2010 7:56 - 8/3/2010 16:11"
 - The pattern MMMd will produce
    for en_US, "Mar 4-8"
    for en_GB, "4-8 Mar"