Is it possible to add custom text in NSDateFormatter's format string? - ios

Question

Suppose I want the date to look like this:
|1988|December|30|
How can add these to the dateFormatter or for that matter let the format be something like this:
30 in the month of December in the year of 1998
now for 1988,December and 30, I would like to use standard formats but I want the text I put to also accompany them.
specially in case of the above one where, in the format and pipes just come adjacent to the date format for date or month where there is no space between the format and the pipe.
Is any of this possible by just setting the format ?

Answer 1

You can insert arbitrary text (enclosed in single quotes) in the date format, for example.
NSDateFormatter *fmt = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[fmt setDateFormat:#"dd' in the month of 'MMMM' in the year of 'yyyy"];
NSString *s = [fmt stringFromDate:[NSDate date]];
Result:
09 in the month of July in the year of 2013

Answer 2

Swift Version:
let dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
dateFormatter.dateFormat = "EEEE' text here 'h:mm' and there 'a"

Answer 3

Updated for iOS 13, Swift 5, Xcode 11 and building on Martin R's answer
let dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
dateFormatter.timeZone = TimeZone.current
dateFormatter.locale = Locale.current
dateFormatter.dateFormat = "dd' in the month of 'MMMM' in the year of 'yyyy"
let stringDate = dateFormatter.string(from: Date())
print(stringDate)
// printed:
// 7 in the month of October in the year of 2019
P.S. If you wanted an apostrophe, then use: '' directly inside the string. For example "MMM d, ''yy" -> Nov 10, '19
Extension:
If you wanted to add ordinal indicators too (ex. the 'th' after '13th'), you can actually do it inside the date formatter string.
So if you wanted Nov 10th, the code would be:
/// Get date.
let date = Date()
/// Get just the day of the date.
let dayAsInt = Calendar.current.component(.day, from: date)
/// Init the formatter.
let dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
/// Set the format string.
/// Notice we include the 'MMM' to extract the month from the date, but we use a variable to get the 'th' part.
dateFormatter.dateFormat = "MMM '\(dayAsInt.getStringWithOrdinalIndicatorIfPossible)'"
let formattedDate = dateFormatter.string(from: date)
/// Will print out Nov 10th or Apr 1st or whatever.
Here's the extension I made to help:
/// This variable only adds the ordinal indicator if the Int that is calling this function can be converted to an NSNumber.
/// An ordinal indicator is the `rd` after `3rd` or the `st` after `1st`.
var getStringWithOrdinalIndicatorIfPossible: String {
let formatter = NumberFormatter()
formatter.numberStyle = .ordinal
return formatter.string(from: NSNumber(value: self)) ?? "\(self)"
}