Nsdateformatter Returns Nil in Swift and iOS Sdk 8.0

DateFormatter's returns nil for specific date strings without time in Swift

You just need to set your date formatter calendar property:

Xcode 8.2.1 • Swift 3.0.2

let dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
dateFormatter.calendar = Calendar(identifier: .iso8601)
dateFormatter.locale = Locale(identifier: "es")
dateFormatter.dateFormat = "dd 'de' MMMM"
dateFormatter.date(from: "8 de octubre")   // "Oct 8, 2000, 1:00 AM"

Why does NSDateFormatter not return nil when given empty string ()

If dateFromString: can not parse the string, returns nil

The simple answer is, the dateFromString does manage to parse an empty string. If you try and put wrong data in the string, say "0" then you will get nil.

Why is it happening? I assume that it is just they way the class is written, since the date formatter does skip missing data and try to complete it. There is probably not a case for "all is missing".

DateFormatter date from string returns nil

If you’re showing your date to the user, don’t set fixed date format string. If you are using fixed-format dates, fix your locale first.

For more details, see Technical Q&A QA1480 titled “NSDateFormatter and Internet Dates”. Below are relevant excerpts (formatting mine):

Q: I'm using NSDateFormatter to parse an Internet-style date, but this fails for some users in some regions. I've set a specific date format string; shouldn't that force NSDateFormatter to work independently of the user's region settings?

A: No. While setting a date format string will appear to work for most users, it's not the right solution to this problem. There are many places where format strings behave in unexpected ways. (…)

If you're working with user-visible dates, you should avoid setting a fixed date format string because it's very hard to predict how your format string will be expressed in all possible user configurations. Rather, you should limit yourself to setting date and time styles (via NSDateFormatter.dateStyle and NSDateFormatter.timeStyle) or generate your date format string from a template (using NSDateFormatter.setLocalizedDateFormatFromTemplate(String)).

On the other hand, if you're working with fixed-format dates, you should first set the locale of the date formatter to something appropriate for your fixed format. In most cases the best locale to choose is "en_US_POSIX", a locale that's specifically designed to yield US English results regardless of both user and system preferences.

Xcode 11, swift. Dateformatter always return nil

Update:

It would appear that it is a bug in Xcode. Trying your code in the viewDidLoad and setting a breakpoint causes the lldb description of the date to be nil, however it correctly prints the expected value out.

You can see more about the bug at this SO post, thanks to OOPer for the link.

Currently this bug is still occurring in Xcode 11.2-beta

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A couple of points

Use .dateFormat instead of .format

Use the correct quotation marks " instead of ”, also you should remove the space from your date format string.

let dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
dateFormatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd"
let date = dateFormatter.date(from: "2019-05-03")

NSDateFormatter dateFromString Always Returns nil

There are two issues here:

1. The format of date string the formatter is expecting (@"yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss") is different from the format of the date string you're trying to parse (@"EEEE, MMMM d, yyyy 'at' h:mm:ss a zzzz").

2. Setting the formatter's locale to [NSLocale systemLocale] is causing [dateFormat dateFromString:] to return nil. Set it to [NSLocate currentLocale].

The full code for the formatter should be:

    NSDateFormatter *dateFormat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    [dateFormat setTimeZone:[NSTimeZone systemTimeZone]];
    [dateFormat setLocale:[NSLocale currentLocale]];
    [dateFormat setDateFormat:@"EEEE, MMMM d, yyyy 'at' h:mm:ss a zzzz"];
    [dateFormat setFormatterBehavior:NSDateFormatterBehaviorDefault];

    NSDate *date = [dateFormat dateFromString:dateString];

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