iOS: How to get a proper Month name from a number?

I know that the NSDateformatter suite of functionality is a boon for mankind, but at the same time it is very confusing to me. I hope you can help me out.

Somewhere in my code, there is an int representing a month. So: 1 would be January, 2 February, etc.

In my user interface, I would like to display this integer as proper month name. Moreover, it should adhere to the locale of the device.

Thank you for your insights

In the mean time, I have done the following:

int monthNumber = 11
NSString * dateString = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"%d", monthNumber];

NSDateFormatter* dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"MM"];
NSDate* myDate = [dateFormatter dateFromString:dateString];
[dateFormatter release];

NSDateFormatter *formatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[formatter setDateFormat:@"MMMM"];
NSString *stringFromDate = [formatter stringFromDate:myDate];
[formatter release];

is this the way to do it? It seems a bit wordy.

Solution 1:

Another option is to use the monthSymbols method:

int monthNumber = 11;   //November
NSDateFormatter *df = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
NSString *monthName = [[df monthSymbols] objectAtIndex:(monthNumber-1)];

Note that you'll need to subtract 1 from your 1..12 monthNumber since monthSymbols is zero-based.

Solution 2:

Swift 2.0

let monthName = NSDateFormatter().monthSymbols[monthNumber - 1]

Swift 4.0

let monthName = DateFormatter().monthSymbols[monthNumber - 1]

Solution 3:

You can change the dateFormat of the NSDateFormatter. So to simplify your code:

int monthNumber = 11
NSString * dateString = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"%d", monthNumber];

NSDateFormatter* dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"MM"];
NSDate* myDate = [dateFormatter dateFromString:dateString];

[formatter setDateFormat:@"MMMM"];
NSString *stringFromDate = [formatter stringFromDate:myDate];
[dateFormatter release];

You should also set the locale once you init the date formatter.

dateFormatter.locale = [NSLocale currentLocale]; // Or any other locale

Hope this helps