ISO8601DateFormatter doesn't parse ISO date string

Question

I\'m trying to parse this

2017-01-23T10:12:31.484Z

using native ISO8601DateFormatter class provided by iOS 1

Answer 1

Prior to macOS 10.13 / iOS 11 ISO8601DateFormatter does not support date strings including milliseconds.

A workaround is to remove the millisecond part with regular expression.

let isoDateString = "2017-01-23T10:12:31.484Z"
let trimmedIsoString = isoDateString.replacingOccurrences(of: "\\.\\d+", with: "", options: .regularExpression)
let formatter = ISO8601DateFormatter()
let date = formatter.date(from: trimmedIsoString)

In macOS 10.13+ / iOS 11+ a new option is added to support fractional seconds:

static var withFractionalSeconds: ISO8601DateFormatter.Options { get }

let isoDateString = "2017-01-23T10:12:31.484Z"
let formatter = ISO8601DateFormatter()
formatter.formatOptions =  [.withInternetDateTime, .withFractionalSeconds]
let date = formatter.date(from: isoDateString)

Answer 2

I encountered same issue some months ago. And here's my solution for reference:

// *****************************************
// MARK: - Formatter extension
// *****************************************
extension Formatter {
    static let iso8601: ISO8601DateFormatter = {
        let formatter = ISO8601DateFormatter()
        formatter.timeZone = TimeZone.current 
        formatter.formatOptions = [.withInternetDateTime, .withFractionalSeconds]
        return formatter
    }()
    static let iso8601NoSecond: ISO8601DateFormatter = {
        let formatter = ISO8601DateFormatter()
        formatter.timeZone = TimeZone.current 
        formatter.formatOptions = [.withInternetDateTime]
        return formatter
    }()
}

// *****************************************
// MARK: - ISO8601 helper
// *****************************************
    func getDateFrom(DateString8601 dateString:String) -> Date?
    {
        if let date = Formatter.iso8601.date(from: dateString)  {
            return date
        }
        if let date = Formatter.iso8601NoSecond.date(from: dateString)  {
            return date
        }
        return nil
    }

// *****************************************
// usage
// *****************************************
    let d = getDateFrom(DateString8601: "2017-01-23T10:12:31.484Z")
    print("2017-01-23T10:12:31.484Z millis= ", d?.timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate)

    let d2 = getDateFrom(DateString8601: "2017-01-23T10:12:31Z")
    print("2017-01-23T10:12:31Z millis= ", d2?.timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate)


// *****************************************
// result
// *****************************************
2017-01-23T10:12:31.484Z millis=  Optional(506859151.48399997)
2017-01-23T10:12:31Z millis=  Optional(506859151.0)

Answer 3

Maybe this will help to decode slightly different formats:

extension JSONDecoder {
    enum DateDecodeError: String, Error {
        case invalidDate
    }

    static var bestDateAttemptDecoder: JSONDecoder {
        let decoder = JSONDecoder()
        decoder.dateDecodingStrategy = .custom({ (decoder) -> Date in
            let container = try decoder.singleValueContainer()
            if let dateSecs = try? container.decode(Double.self) {
                return Date(timeIntervalSince1970: dateSecs)
            }

            if let dateSecs = try? container.decode(UInt.self) {
                return Date(timeIntervalSince1970: TimeInterval(dateSecs))
            }

            let dateStr = try container.decode(String.self)
            let isoFormatter = ISO8601DateFormatter()
            isoFormatter.formatOptions = [.withInternetDateTime, .withFractionalSeconds]
            if let date = isoFormatter.date(from: dateStr) {
                return date
            }

            isoFormatter.formatOptions = [.withInternetDateTime ]
            if let date = isoFormatter.date(from: dateStr) {
                return date
            }

            log.warning("Cannot decode date");
            throw DateDecodeError.invalidDate
        })

        return decoder
    }
}

From: https://gist.github.com/th3m477/442a0d1da6354dd3b84e3b71df5dca6a

Answer 4

For people that are not ready to go to iOS 11 yet, you can always create your own formatter to handle milliseconds, e.g.:

extension DateFormatter {
    static var iSO8601DateWithMillisec: DateFormatter {
        let dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
        dateFormatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ"
        return dateFormatter
    }
}

Usage:

let formater = DateFormatter.iSO8601DateWithMillisec
let date = formater.date(from: "2017-01-23T10:12:31.484Z")!
print(date) // output: 2017-01-23 10:12:31 +0000

It is slightly more elegant than writing a regex to strip out the milliseconds from the input string.