How do I get the day of the week with Foundation? - ios

Question

How do I get the day of the week as a string?

Answer 1

NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:#"EEEE"];
NSLog(#"%#", [dateFormatter stringFromDate:[NSDate date]]);
outputs current day of week as a string in locale dependent on current regional settings.
To get just a week day number you must use NSCalendar class:
NSCalendar *gregorian = [[[NSCalendar alloc] initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSGregorianCalendar] autorelease];
NSDateComponents *comps = [gregorian components:NSWeekdayCalendarUnit fromDate:[NSDate date]];
int weekday = [comps weekday];

Answer 2

Just use these three lines:
CFAbsoluteTime at = CFAbsoluteTimeGetCurrent();
CFTimeZoneRef tz = CFTimeZoneCopySystem();
SInt32 WeekdayNumber = CFAbsoluteTimeGetDayOfWeek(at, tz);

Answer 3

Many of the answers here are deprecated. This works as of iOS 8.4 and gives you the day of the week as a string and as a number.
NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:#"EEEE"];
NSLog(#"The day of the week: %#", [dateFormatter stringFromDate:[NSDate date]]);
NSCalendar *gregorian = [[NSCalendar alloc] initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSCalendarIdentifierGregorian];
NSDateComponents *comps = [gregorian components:NSCalendarUnitWeekday fromDate:[NSDate date]];
int weekday = [comps weekday];
NSLog(#"The week day number: %d", weekday);

Answer 4

Here's how you do it in Swift 3, and get a localised day name…
let dayNumber = Calendar.current.component(.weekday, from: Date()) // 1 - 7
let dayName = DateFormatter().weekdaySymbols[dayNumber - 1]

Answer 5

-(void)getdate {
NSDateFormatter *dateFormat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[dateFormat setDateFormat:#"yyyy-MM-dd"];
NSDateFormatter *format = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[format setDateFormat:#"MMM dd, yyyy HH:mm"];
NSDateFormatter *timeFormat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[timeFormat setDateFormat:#"HH:mm:ss"];
NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] ;
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:#"EEEE"];
NSDate *now = [[NSDate alloc] init];
NSString *dateString = [format stringFromDate:now];
NSString *theDate = [dateFormat stringFromDate:now];
NSString *theTime = [timeFormat stringFromDate:now];
NSString *week = [dateFormatter stringFromDate:now];
NSLog(#"\n"
"theDate: |%#| \n"
"theTime: |%#| \n"
"Now: |%#| \n"
"Week: |%#| \n"
, theDate, theTime,dateString,week);
}

Answer 6

I needed a simple (Gregorian) day of the week index, where 0=Sunday and 6=Saturday to be used in pattern match algorithms. From there it is a simple matter of looking up the day name from an array using the index. Here is what I came up with that doesn't require date formatters, or NSCalendar or date component manipulation:
+(long)dayOfWeek:(NSDate *)anyDate {
//calculate number of days since reference date jan 1, 01
NSTimeInterval utcoffset = [[NSTimeZone localTimeZone] secondsFromGMT];
NSTimeInterval interval = ([anyDate timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate]+utcoffset)/(60.0*60.0*24.0);
//mod 7 the number of days to identify day index
long dayix=((long)interval+8) % 7;
return dayix;
}

Answer 7

Here is the updated code for Swift 3
Code :
let calendar = Calendar(identifier: .gregorian)
let weekdayAsInteger = calendar.component(.weekday, from: Date())
To Print the name of the event as String:
let dateFromat = DateFormatter()
datFormat.dateFormat = "EEEE"
let name = datFormat.string(from: Date())

Answer 8

I think this topic is really useful, so I post some code Swift 2.1 compatible.
extension NSDate {
static func getBeautyToday() -> String {
let now = NSDate()
let dateFormatter = NSDateFormatter()
dateFormatter.dateFormat = "EEEE',' dd MMMM"
return dateFormatter.stringFromDate(now)
}
}
Anywhere you can call:
let today = NSDate.getBeautyToday()
print(today) ---> "Monday, 14 December"
Swift 3.0
As #delta2flat suggested, I update answer giving user the ability to specify custom format.
extension NSDate {
static func getBeautyToday(format: String = "EEEE',' dd MMMM") -> String {
let now = Date()
let dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
dateFormatter.dateFormat = format
return dateFormatter.string(from: now)
}
}

Answer 9

Vladimir's answer worked well for me, but I thought that I would post the Unicode link for the date format strings.
http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr35/tr35-25.html#Date_Format_Patterns
This link is for iOS 6. The other versions of iOS have different standards which can be found in the X-Code documentation.

Answer 10

This way it works in Swift:
let calendar = NSCalendar.currentCalendar()
let weekday = calendar.component(.CalendarUnitWeekday, fromDate: NSDate())
Then assign the weekdays to the resulting numbers.

Answer 11

I had quite strange issue with getting a day of week. Only setting firstWeekday wasn't enough. It was also necesarry to set the time zone. My working solution was:
NSCalendar* cal = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];
[cal setTimeZone:[NSTimeZone timeZoneForSecondsFromGMT:0]];
[cal setFirstWeekday:1]; //Sunday
NSDateComponents* comp = [cal components:( NSWeekOfMonthCalendarUnit | NSYearCalendarUnit | NSMonthCalendarUnit | NSDayCalendarUnit | NSWeekdayCalendarUnit | NSWeekCalendarUnit) fromDate:date];
return [comp weekday] ;

Answer 12

Swift 2: Get day of week in one line. (based on neoscribe answer)
let dayOfWeek = Int((myDate.timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate / (60.0*60.0*24.0)) % 7)
let isMonday = (dayOfWeek == 0)
let isSunday = (dayOfWeek == 6)

Answer 13

self.dateTimeFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
self.dateTimeFormatter.timeZone = [NSTimeZone timeZoneForSecondsFromGMT:0]; // your timezone
self.dateTimeFormatter.locale = [NSLocale localeWithLocaleIdentifier:#"zh_CN"]; // your locale
self.dateTimeFormatter.dateFormat = #"ccc MM-dd mm:ss";
there are three symbols we can use to format day of week:
E
e
c
The following two documents may help you.
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/DataFormatting/Articles/dfDateFormatting10_4.html
http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr35/tr35-31/tr35-dates.html#Date_Format_Patterns
Demo:
you can test your pattern on this website:
http://nsdateformatter.com/