iOS NSDateFormatter not working as it should when region is set to Asian regions

[cstromme]

Have the following piece of code in my app:

NSDate *today = [NSDate date];
NSDateFormatter *outputDateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[outputDateFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy"];
NSString *year = [outputDateFormatter stringFromDate:today];

[outputDateFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM/dd' 'hh:mmaa"];
NSDate *datetime = [outputDateFormatter dateFromString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@-%@",year,tmpLastPostDate]];
NSLog(@"DateFormat: %@\nString: %@\nDate: %@",[outputDateFormatter dateFormat],[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@-%@",year,tmpLastPostDate],datetime);

NSLog(@"Pre: %@",tmpLastPostDate);
[outputDateFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:SSSSSS"];
tmpLastPostDate = [outputDateFormatter stringFromDate:datetime];
NSLog(@"Post: %@",tmpLastPostDate);
[outputDateFormatter release];

All the NSLog statements are added to try and work out the problem here. What this does is take my input date, which is of format '3/29 8:48pm', add the year to the string and then run it through the formatter to output it in the 'yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:SSSSSS' format. This all works perfectly in all cases except when the device's regional setting has been set to Japan. For some reason then the 'NSDate *datetime = [outputDateFormatter dateFromString:[NSString stringWithFormat"%@-%@",year,tmpLastPostDate]];' just gives me a nil datetime.

Here's the output from the NSLog statement on the line below:

DateFormat: yyyy-MM/dd' 'hh:mmaa
String: 2010-3/30 11:36pm
Date: (null)

Again, this works perfectly for any other region I've tested other than some of the Asian ones.

So what is wrong here? Is this a bug in NSDateFormatter or am I doing something wrong? I am specifically telling it what format it should be expecting the date in, so why is this being affected by the region setting?

 

[bredell]

Again, this works perfectly for any other region I've tested other than some of the Asian ones.

So what is wrong here? Is this a bug in NSDateFormatter or am I doing something wrong? I am specifically telling it what format it should be expecting the date in, so why is this being affected by the region setting?

You're forgetting that the strings "AM" and "PM" are also localized. If you set the regional setting to Japan you can't use the time string "11:36pm", you have to use the japanese variant "11:36午後".

In your code you're forcing people to use a certain date and time format which is generally a bad thing, people should be able to use their own local format.