NSDateformatter dateFromString AnyObject

Question

I have an array of AnyObjects of NSDates and I am trying to convert to weekdays like (Mon, Tue, Wed..)

The Array looks like this when I print it to the console:

[2014-12-03 22:16:26 +0000, 2014-12-05 22:16:26 +0000, 2014-12-11 22:16:26 +0000]

This is my Code:

var xAxisDates = [AnyObject]()


func dateformatter() {
    let formatter = NSDateFormatter()
    formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss Z"

    let weekDayFormatter = NSDateFormatter()
    weekDayFormatter.dateFormat = "EEE"

    println(xAxisDates)

    for i in xAxisDates{

        let date = formatter.dateFromString(i as String)
        println(weekDayFormatter.stringFromDate(date!))
    }
}

The code crash at :

  let date = formatter.dateFromString(i as String) 

I have been trying all day to figure out what I am doing wrong, and read practically every question on NSDateFormatter but to no avail. I am down casting i as String because if I don´t I get error message AnyObject is not convertible to String. My feeling is that the type do not match up, but I am not sure, and I don´t know how to find out. I have attached the error message as picture if that helps. If you can recommend a tutorial or book or something on how to understand what is wrong I would appreciate it, as I am trying to learn.

Any help would be much appreciated !

Answer 1

extension NSDate {
    var weekdayName: String {
        let formatter = NSDateFormatter()
        formatter.dateFormat = "EEEE"
        return formatter.stringFromDate(self)
    }
}

let myArrayOfAnyObjects:[AnyObject] = [NSDate()]

myArrayOfAnyObjects.first!.weekdayName   // "Tuesday"

Answer 2

The xAxisDates array contains NSDate objects, therefore

let date = formatter.dateFromString(i as String)

does not make any sense, and i as String already crashes because i is an NSDate and not a String .

You just need to convert the dates to a string:

for i in xAxisDates {
    println(weekDayFormatter.stringFromDate(i as NSDate))
}

or better check if the array elements actually are NSDate objects:

for i in xAxisDates {
    if let date = i as? NSDate {
        println(weekDayFormatter.stringFromDate(date))
    }
}