How can I parse / create a date time stamp formatted with fractional seconds UTC timezone (ISO 8601, RFC 3339) in Swift?

Question

How to generate a date time stamp, using the format standards for ISO 8601 and RFC 3339?

The goal is a string that looks like this:

\"2015-01-01T00:0         


        

Answer 1

In the future the format might need to be changed which could be a small head ache having date.dateFromISO8601 calls everywhere in an app. Use a class and protocol to wrap the implementation, changing the date time format call in one place will be simpler. Use RFC3339 if possible, its a more complete representation. DateFormatProtocol and DateFormat is great for dependency injection.

class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {

    internal static let rfc3339DateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZZZZZ"
    internal static let localeEnUsPosix = "en_US_POSIX"
}

import Foundation

protocol DateFormatProtocol {

    func format(date: NSDate) -> String
    func parse(date: String) -> NSDate?

}


import Foundation

class DateFormat:  DateFormatProtocol {

    func format(date: NSDate) -> String {
        return date.rfc3339
    }

    func parse(date: String) -> NSDate? {
        return date.rfc3339
    }

}


extension NSDate {

    struct Formatter {
        static let rfc3339: NSDateFormatter = {
            let formatter = NSDateFormatter()
            formatter.calendar = NSCalendar(calendarIdentifier: NSCalendarIdentifierISO8601)
            formatter.locale = NSLocale(localeIdentifier: AppDelegate.localeEnUsPosix)
            formatter.timeZone = NSTimeZone(forSecondsFromGMT: 0)
            formatter.dateFormat = rfc3339DateFormat
            return formatter
        }()
    }

    var rfc3339: String { return Formatter.rfc3339.stringFromDate(self) }
}

extension String {
    var rfc3339: NSDate? {
        return NSDate.Formatter.rfc3339.dateFromString(self)
    }
}



class DependencyService: DependencyServiceProtocol {

    private var dateFormat: DateFormatProtocol?

    func setDateFormat(dateFormat: DateFormatProtocol) {
        self.dateFormat = dateFormat
    }

    func getDateFormat() -> DateFormatProtocol {
        if let dateFormatObject = dateFormat {

            return dateFormatObject
        } else {
            let dateFormatObject = DateFormat()
            dateFormat = dateFormatObject

            return dateFormatObject
        }
    }

}