iOS Dateformatter Timezone

Question

Im trying to convert a String without timezone value like "31.05.2015" to NSDate.

Whats wrong with my DateFormatter? It returns the date 2015-05-31 22:00:00 +0000 and when I try to print it with the same formatter it prints: 01.06.2015

-(NSDateFormatter*) dateFormatter{
    if(!_dateFormatter){
        _dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc]init];
        [_dateAndTimeFormatter setDateFormat:@"dd.MM.yyyy"];
        [_dateAndTimeFormatter setTimeZone:[NSTimeZone timeZoneWithAbbreviation:@"CEST"]];
        _dateFormatter.dateStyle = NSDateFormatterShortStyle;
        _dateFormatter.timeStyle = NSDateFormatterNoStyle;
    }
    return _dateFormatter;
}

EDIT

I updated it to

-(NSDateFormatter*) dateAndTimeFormatter{
    if(!_dateAndTimeFormatter){
        _dateAndTimeFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc]init];
        [_dateAndTimeFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS Z"];
        _dateAndTimeFormatter.dateStyle = NSDateFormatterShortStyle;
        _dateAndTimeFormatter.timeStyle = NSDateFormatterShortStyle;
    }
    return _dateAndTimeFormatter;
}

and call it with

NSDate *startDate = [self.dateFormatter dateFromString:@"31.05.2015"];
self.beginningValueLabel.text = [self.dateFormatter stringFromDate:startDate];

The result still is 01.06.2015.

startDate is 2015-05-31 22:00:00 +0000

Are you using NSLog() or the debugger to see the resulting date? A little searching might find the 1000+ other questions relating to this on this site. — Droppy
I'm using the debugger and I print the result in my app. And I parse it to an NSDate to print it correctly for each culture. — netshark1000

Kekoa Kekoa · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-22T13:23:49

When you use [NSDateFormatter setTimeZone:] the formatter will adjust the date for display based on that new timezone, so it's adding the timezone offset to the date before formatting it for display.

The NSDateFormatter defaults to the timezone of the device, so it would have had the same effect as setting the timezone manually. Tell the DateFormatter to use the same timezone as the date (+0000).

dateFormatter.timeZone = [NSTimeZone timeZoneForSecondsFromGMT:0]

iOS Dateformatter Timezone

1 Answers