Convert Date with TimeStamp into NSString iOS

Question

I am trying to convert my device current time into Zone (`America/New_york`) ``` NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init]; [dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"]; [dateFormatter setTimeZone:[NSTimeZone timeZoneWithName:@"America/New_York"]]; NSDate *start = [NSDate date]; ``` `start` now has the device current time in `IST`. How can I convert it into zone 'America' I planned to do the below ``` start = [dateFormatter dateFromString:<start date String>]; ``` A Day is categorised into 3 divisions based on a time period. ``` Say 08:00 - 15:00 AS PHASE1 15:00 - 17:00 AS PHASE2 17:00 - 20:00 AS PHASE3 20:00 - 08:00 AS TRANSITION PHASE and can be ignored. ``` Am just taking device's date and append the time string to identify in which phase it is. Example: Indian Time is 05-FEB-2014 01:25 AM (Device Date) Considering `15:00` as first cutoff.. I append the '`05-FEB-2014`' to `15:00` and digest it as American timezone.. Which resolves and gives me `06-FEB-…

Accepted Answer

`NSDate` does not have a time zone. It's a single time reference that's valid anywhere. It's basically just an object wrapper for `NSTimeInterval`-- all it stores is the number of seconds since a reference date. Time zones only apply when converting to/from user-visible strings.

You can get a user-visible string from your date formatter as

```
NSString *localizedDateString = [dateFormatter stringFromDate:start];
```

But converting `NSDate` to a particular time zone is not a meaningful goal. There's no time zone on `NSDate`, so it's not a conversion that can be applied.

Convert Date with TimeStamp into NSString iOS

Solution

Problem