I had come across a few articles on parsing internet dates doing just this already and had seen a bit of code on GitHub doing this task as well. But what I didn’t find is a project doing just this on GitHub.

So I made one.

You can see it here. https://github.com/OrionSeven/BSNSDate-InternetDateParsing

This isn’t my first project on GitHub, but it is my first Objective-C one, and once more it’s something I actually need and hope others will too. To use it simply add the files in your project, include the header file and:

NSString *dateTimeString = @"2013-02-01T10:52:00Z";
NSDate *date = [NSDate dateFromInternetDateTimeString:dateTimeString];

Or if you think you know the format used for your date you can give it a hint:

NSString *dateTimeString = @"Mon Feb 11 2013 12:53:19 GMT-0800 (PST)";
NSDate *date = [NSDate dateFromInternetDateTimeString:test5 FormatHint:RFC2822];

The NSDate Category supports parsing RFC 2822 and 3339 formatted dates. Right now it’s just the few common ones I’ve come across, but it handles the heavy lifting in a nice manner for you.

This is in large part based on Apples documentation about NSDateFormatter and Internet Dates.

Day 40-41: Zip Zilch Nada

Day 42: Finally got my NSDate Category for Internet Date Time parsing in objective-c up on GitHub! Take a look at it here. https://github.com/OrionSeven/BSNSDate-InternetDateParsing

Weekly Update

Tough week, my youngest has a pretty bad injury from snowboarding. Thought it was a simple fracture (even that’s lame) but it appears to be more than that. Still I got a few hours in and managed to get my NSDate Category out the door. I’d love to be able to spend larger chunks on my projects, but the idea was to spend at least an hour a day, and that I’m still hacking at.

Being the first piece of objective-c code I’ve shared, and only being an Objective-C programmer for 2 months I’m happy with what I have. This bit of code has been a great learning tool for:

• Synchronization (NSLock)
• NSFormatter
• Various ways to implement the Singleton Pattern in Objective-C
• The quirks of string conversion to dates in Objective-C/Cocoa
• How various popular projects organize projects for presentation on GitHub

I still need to make a README before I push my code to GitHub, then I’m back to my main project.

Project Code 365 Progress

Doing a checkin now while it’s on my mind.

I’m 30 for 38 days, 3 for 5 weekly checkins and now 10% through the year! I wish I had not missed those two checkins, but I’m still staying the course on continued work on my project(s). It’s fun to be doing this and that’s what still counts.

Worked on extracting some of my code into a new project which is turning into a nice diversion. Mostly learning, not a ton of code.

Day 37

I spent a bit of extra time enjoying my little diversion. It’s requiring me to dig into objective-c and cocoa a bit more, understanding how dates are handled and understanding more about the common date formats. I’m building a category for NSDate to handle conversion of strings to dates for the common date formats; I plan on putting it on GitHub once it’s ready for my own use?

Why go through the trouble of putting something on GitHub?

1. I found that I kept coming back to this section of code and needing it to be more robust.
2. Making something “good enough to show” others makes you do it right (or at least what your interpretation of right is).
3. I’ve been helped by others who’ve shared their great libraries as open source.
4. I couldn’t find what I needed already (though I was inspired by something coming close).

Anyhow, it should be “good enough to show” soon.

Day 35 – My intention was to finish a feature I started Saturday. But instead I discovered a bug to squash! Interesting bug, I’m not sure how I’d hit it outside of a development environment, but having your app crash on startup without doing anything is a fun one.

From there I worked on where I left off with my Testing on Saturday and ended up learning a lot about parsing “Internet Dates” in objective-c. Which led me to starting a little side project. More on that later.

Day 33, I worked on some new test code while sitting with my daughter at the ski lodge. I likely wouldn’t have gotten any programming in if not for her untimely crash on the mountain which resulted in a doctors visit for her.