Reading Value from UIDatePicker UIDatePickerModeCountDownTimer - ios

Question

Trying to get the amount of time selected by a user from a UIDatePicker set to mode:"UIDatePickerModeCountDownTimer" in InterFace Builder. Some other stacks say to just check the value of the property countDownDuration on the object.
#property (weak, nonatomic) IBOutlet UIDatePicker *hereIsThePicker;
...
NSLog(#"%f", self.hereIsThePicker.countDownDuration);
But this value often reports a range of values, I've seen numbers such as 70, 80, 113, etc for a selection of "0 Hours, 0 Minutes". So apparently countDownDuration is not what I need.
Does anyone have any hints or clues on how to use UIDatePickerModeCountDownTimer and convert the selection to number of seconds selected? so 1 Minute Selected = 60 Seconds, or 1 Hour 5 Minutes Selected = 3900 seconds ?
Been trying to track this down for 2 days now and just can't seem to get my head around what is going on.
Here is a screenshot of an example application that I setup that just has these two components. You can see the IBOutlet, and a button with an IBAction that is fetching the time and NSLogging it to the bottom of the screen:

Answer 1

Finally after trying random stuff for days, the simple answer, for whatever reason is you need to set a value to countDownDuration, even if you don't need to:
[self.timerPicker setCountDownDuration:60.0f]; //Defaults to 1 minute

Answer 2

In your header .h file put this
#interface ViewController : UIViewController
{
__weak IBOutlet UIPickerView *datePick;
NSMutableArray *hoursArray;
NSMutableArray *minsArray;
NSTimeInterval interval;
}
- (IBAction)calculateTimeFromPicker:(id)sender;
in your .m file put this
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
//initialize arrays
hoursArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
minsArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
NSString *strVal = [[NSString alloc] init];
for(int i=0; i<61; i++)
{
strVal = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%d", i];
//NSLog(#"strVal: %#", strVal);
//Create array with 0-12 hours
if (i < 13)
{
[hoursArray addObject:strVal];
}
//create arrays with 0-60 mins
[minsArray addObject:strVal];
}
NSLog(#"[hoursArray count]: %d", [hoursArray count]);
NSLog(#"[minsArray count]: %d", [minsArray count]);
}
//Method to define how many columns/dials to show
- (NSInteger)numberOfComponentsInPickerView:(UIPickerView *)pickerView
{
return 2;
}
// Method to define the numberOfRows in a component using the array.
- (NSInteger)pickerView:(UIPickerView *)pickerView numberOfRowsInComponent :(NSInteger)component
{
if (component==0)
{
return [hoursArray count];
}
else
{
return [minsArray count];
}
}
// Method to show the title of row for a component.
- (NSString *)pickerView:(UIPickerView *)pickerView titleForRow:(NSInteger)row forComponent:(NSInteger)component
{
switch (component)
{
case 0:
return [hoursArray objectAtIndex:row];
break;
case 1:
return [minsArray objectAtIndex:row];
break;
}
return nil;
}
- (IBAction)calculateTimeFromPicker:(id)sender
{
NSString *hoursStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#",[hoursArray objectAtIndex:[pickerView selectedRowInComponent:0]]];
NSString *minsStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#",[minsArray objectAtIndex:[pickerView selectedRowInComponent:1]]];
int hoursInt = [hoursStr intValue];
int minsInt = [minsStr intValue];
interval = 0 + (minsInt*60) + (hoursInt*3600);
NSString *totalTimeStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%f",interval];
}