NSDateFormatter not Working for Twitter date

Question

I am trying to format a date i am getting from twitter using the STTwitter library.

However the code that I've tried so far has not worked.

Code for getting the date from twitter:

NSString *dateString = [status valueForKey:@"created_at"];

This returns the time, date, time zone and year in which the tweet was made which looks messy.

I tried using the following code to convert this and make it neater:

NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter =[[NSDateFormatter alloc]init];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"MMddHHmm"];

NSDate *dateFromString = [dateFormatter dateFromString:dateString];
NSLog(@"%@", dateFromString);


dateFormatter =[[NSDateFormatter alloc]init];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"dd MMMM' at 'hhmm a"];
NSString *mydate=[dateFormatter stringFromDate:dateFromString];

And then try to put the result in a text label:

cell.detailTextLabel.text = my date;

Ive tried many different variations of the Date Formatter but none have worked and i have no idea why.

Thanks for your help :)

Answer 1

The date format you are using is not even close the date string used in the result, which is something like Fri Nov 18 20:35:49 +0000 2011.

NSString *dateStr = @"Fri Nov 18 20:35:49 +0000 2011";

NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter= [NSDateFormatter new];
dateFormatter.locale = [[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:@"en_US_POSIX"];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"EEE MMM dd HH:mm:ss Z yyyy"];

NSDate *date = [dateFormatter dateFromString:dateStr];

The real trick is in the locale used, since the date is localized in english.