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
        }
    }

}

Answer 2

There is a new ISO8601DateFormatter class that let's you create a string with just one line. For backwards compatibility I used an old C-library. I hope this is useful for someone.

Swift 3.0

extension Date {
    var iso8601: String {
        if #available(OSX 10.12, iOS 10.0, watchOS 3.0, tvOS 10.0, *) {
            return ISO8601DateFormatter.string(from: self, timeZone: TimeZone.current, formatOptions: .withInternetDateTime)
        } else {
            var buffer = [CChar](repeating: 0, count: 25)
            var time = time_t(self.timeIntervalSince1970)
            strftime_l(&buffer, buffer.count, "%FT%T%z", localtime(&time), nil)
            return String(cString: buffer)
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

Based on the acceptable answer in an object paradigm

class ISO8601Format
{
    let format: ISO8601DateFormatter

    init() {
        let format = ISO8601DateFormatter()
        format.formatOptions = [.withInternetDateTime, .withFractionalSeconds]
        format.timeZone = TimeZone(secondsFromGMT: 0)!
        self.format = format
    }

    func date(from string: String) -> Date {
        guard let date = format.date(from: string) else { fatalError() }
        return date
    }

    func string(from date: Date) -> String { return format.string(from: date) }
}


class ISO8601Time
{
    let date: Date
    let format = ISO8601Format() //FIXME: Duplication

    required init(date: Date) { self.date = date }

    convenience init(string: String) {
        let format = ISO8601Format() //FIXME: Duplication
        let date = format.date(from: string)
        self.init(date: date)
    }

    func concise() -> String { return format.string(from: date) }

    func description() -> String { return date.description(with: .current) }
}

callsite

let now = Date()
let time1 = ISO8601Time(date: now)
print("time1.concise(): \(time1.concise())")
print("time1: \(time1.description())")


let time2 = ISO8601Time(string: "2020-03-24T23:16:17.661Z")
print("time2.concise(): \(time2.concise())")
print("time2: \(time2.description())")

Answer 4

Uses ISO8601DateFormatter on iOS10 or newer.

Uses DateFormatter on iOS9 or older.

Swift 4

protocol DateFormatterProtocol {
    func string(from date: Date) -> String
    func date(from string: String) -> Date?
}

extension DateFormatter: DateFormatterProtocol {}

@available(iOS 10.0, *)
extension ISO8601DateFormatter: DateFormatterProtocol {}

struct DateFormatterShared {
    static let iso8601: DateFormatterProtocol = {
        if #available(iOS 10, *) {
            return ISO8601DateFormatter()
        } else {
            // iOS 9
            let formatter = DateFormatter()
            formatter.calendar = Calendar(identifier: .iso8601)
            formatter.locale = Locale(identifier: "en_US_POSIX")
            formatter.timeZone = TimeZone(secondsFromGMT: 0)
            formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXXXX"
            return formatter
        }
    }()
}

Answer 5

If you want to use the ISO8601DateFormatter() with a date from a Rails 4+ JSON feed (and don't need millis of course), you need to set a few options on the formatter for it to work right otherwise the the date(from: string) function will return nil. Here's what I'm using:

extension Date {
    init(dateString:String) {
        self = Date.iso8601Formatter.date(from: dateString)!
    }

    static let iso8601Formatter: ISO8601DateFormatter = {
        let formatter = ISO8601DateFormatter()
        formatter.formatOptions = [.withFullDate,
                                          .withTime,
                                          .withDashSeparatorInDate,
                                          .withColonSeparatorInTime]
        return formatter
    }()
}

Here's the result of using the options verses not in a playground screenshot:

Answer 6

Swift 4 • iOS 11.2.1 or later

extension ISO8601DateFormatter {
    convenience init(_ formatOptions: Options, timeZone: TimeZone = TimeZone(secondsFromGMT: 0)!) {
        self.init()
        self.formatOptions = formatOptions
        self.timeZone = timeZone
    }
}

---

extension Formatter {
    static let iso8601withFractionalSeconds = ISO8601DateFormatter([.withInternetDateTime, .withFractionalSeconds])
}

---

extension Date {
    var iso8601withFractionalSeconds: String { return Formatter.iso8601withFractionalSeconds.string(from: self) }
}

---

extension String {
    var iso8601withFractionalSeconds: Date? { return Formatter.iso8601withFractionalSeconds.date(from: self) }
}

---

Usage:

Date().description(with: .current)  //  Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 10:35:01 PM Brasilia Summer Time"
let dateString = Date().iso8601withFractionalSeconds   //  "2019-02-06T00:35:01.746Z"

if let date = dateString.iso8601withFractionalSeconds {
    date.description(with: .current) // "Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 10:35:01 PM Brasilia Summer Time"
    print(date.iso8601withFractionalSeconds)           //  "2019-02-06T00:35:01.746Z\n"
}

---

iOS 9 • Swift 3 or later

extension Formatter {
    static let iso8601withFractionalSeconds: DateFormatter = {
        let formatter = DateFormatter()
        formatter.calendar = Calendar(identifier: .iso8601)
        formatter.locale = Locale(identifier: "en_US_POSIX")
        formatter.timeZone = TimeZone(secondsFromGMT: 0)
        formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXXXX"
        return formatter
    }()
}

---

Codable Protocol

If you need to encode and decode this format when working with Codable protocol you can create your own custom date encoding/decoding strategies:

extension JSONDecoder.DateDecodingStrategy {
    static let iso8601withFractionalSeconds = custom {
        let container = try $0.singleValueContainer()
        let string = try container.decode(String.self)
        guard let date = Formatter.iso8601withFractionalSeconds.date(from: string) else {
            throw DecodingError.dataCorruptedError(in: container,
                  debugDescription: "Invalid date: " + string)
        }
        return date
    }
}

and the encoding strategy

extension JSONEncoder.DateEncodingStrategy {
    static let iso8601withFractionalSeconds = custom {
        var container = $1.singleValueContainer()
        try container.encode(Formatter.iso8601withFractionalSeconds.string(from: $0))
    }
}

---

Playground Testing

let dates = [Date()]   // ["Feb 8, 2019 at 9:48 PM"]

encoding

let encoder = JSONEncoder()
encoder.dateEncodingStrategy = .iso8601withFractionalSeconds
let data = try! encoder.encode(dates)
print(String(data: data, encoding: .utf8)!)

decoding

let decoder = JSONDecoder()
decoder.dateDecodingStrategy = .iso8601withFractionalSeconds
let decodedDates = try! decoder.decode([Date].self, from: data)  // ["Feb 8, 2019 at 9:48 PM"]