Swift Parse Date from any format String

Swift
,
1

This routine will take any string and attempt to parse a valid date string from it
if returns a BOOL (success/fail) and a Date if it succeeded

import Cocoa
import Foundation

public func isValidDate(_ inDATE : String) -> (Bool,Date?) {
    let dt = returnDateFromString(inDATE)
    if dt == nil { return (false,nil) }
    return (true,dt)
}

private func returnDateFromString(_ inDATE: String) -> Date? {
    let types : NSTextCheckingResult.CheckingType = [.date ]
    let detector = try? NSDataDetector(types: types.rawValue)
    var aDate    = Date()
    let result   = detector?.firstMatch(in: inDATE, range: NSMakeRange(0, inDATE.utf16.count))
    if result   == nil { return nil } // not a valid date
    if result?.resultType == .date {
        aDate  = (result?.date)!
        let TZ = Double(TimeZone.current.secondsFromGMT(for: aDate))
        aDate  = Calendar.current.date(byAdding: .second, value: Int(TZ), to: aDate)!
    }
    return aDate
}

for example

print( isValidDate("My birthday is 25 jan 56 and it was last month"))

returns

(true, Optional(1956-01-25 12:00:00 +0000))
2 Likes
2

Ah data detectors are so cool !

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