An NSDate object encapsulates a constant
date/time to a high resolution represented by the
NSTimeInterval typedef.
NSDate has methods relating to times and
time differences in the abstract, but not calendar dates
or time zones. These features are added in the
NSCalendarDate
subclass. The
NSTimeZone
class handles time zone information.
Returns an autoreleased instance representing the
date and time given by string. The value of
string may be a 'natural' specification as
specified by the preferences in the user defaults
database, allowing phrases like 'last tuesday'
Returns an autoreleased instance representing the
date and time given by string. The value
of string may be a 'natural' specification
as specified by the preferences in the user defaults
database, allowing phrases like 'last tuesday'
The locale contains keys such as -
NSDateTimeOrdering
Controls the use of ambiguous numbers. This is
done as a sequence of the letters D(ay), M(onth),
Y(ear), and H(our). YMDH means that the first
number encountered is assumed to be a year, the
second a month, the third a day, and the last an
hour.
NSEarlierTimeDesignations
An array of strings for times in the past.
Defaults are ago, last,
past, prior
NSHourNameDesignations
An array of arrays of strings identifying the time
of day. Each array has an hour as its first value,
and one or more words as subsequent values.
Defaults are: (0, midnight), (10, morning),
(12, noon, lunch), (14, afternoon), (19, dinner).
NSLaterTimeDesignations
An array of strings for times in the future.
Default is next
NSNextDayDesignations
The day after today. Default is tomorrow.
NSNextNextDayDesignations
The day after tomorrow. Default is
nextday.
NSPriorDayDesignations
The day before today. Default is
yesterday.
NSThisDayDesignations
Identifies the current day. Default is
today.
NSYearMonthWeekDesignations
An array giving the word for year, month, and week.
Defaults are year,
month and week.
Returns an autoreleased instance with the date and
time value given by the string using the ISO standard
format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS +/-HHHMM (all the fields
of which must be present).
Returns the time interval between the reference
date and the current time. Returns the time
interval between the current date and the
reference date (1 January 2001, GMT).
Returns an autoreleased instance of the
NSCalendarDate
class whose date/time value is the same as that of
the receiver, and which uses the
formatString and timeZone
specified.
Returns an instance with the date and time value
given by the string using the ISO standard format
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS +/-HHHMM (all the fields of
which must be present).
Returns whether the receiver is exactly equal to
other, to the limit of the NSTimeInterval
precision. This is the behavior of the
current MacOS-X system, not that of the OpenStep
specification (which counted two dates within
a second of each other as being equal).
The old behavior meant that two dates equal to a third
date were not necessarily equal to each
other (confusing), and meant that there
was no reasonable way to use a date as a dictionary key
or store dates in a set.
Returns the time interval between the receivers
value and that of the otherDate argument.
If otherDate is earlier than the receiver,
the returned value will be positive, if it is later it
will be negative. For current (2011) OSX
compatibility, this method returns NaN if
otherDate is nil... do not
write code depending on that behavior.
Returns the time interval between the receivers
value and the current date/time. If the receiver
represents a date/time in the past this will be
negative, if it is in the future the returned
value will be positive.