How to change a string I get from API - swift

Question

I get a string with a date of the first flight for each of four rockets from this API. The string that I get looks like this: "2006-03-24". I want it to look this way: "24 March, 2006". I don't understand how to do this in SwiftUI.
My View with the dates:
struct DateView: View {
#State var rockets = [RocketInfo]()
var body: some View {
NavigationView {
if rockets.isEmpty {
ProgressView()
} else {
TabView {
ForEach(rockets) { rocket in
VStack {
HStack {
Text("First flight")
Spacer()
Text(rocket.firstFlight)
}
.padding()
}
}
}
.tabViewStyle(.page)
.navigationBarTitleDisplayMode(.inline)
.navigationBarHidden(true)
}
}
.onAppear {
InfoApi().getRockets { rockets in
self.rockets = rockets
}
}
}
}
struct DateView_Previews: PreviewProvider {
static var previews: some View {
DateView()
.preferredColorScheme(.dark)
}
}
Screenshot of the API data: enter image description here

Answer 1

The func gets a date from the string, which you then can format to your wishes.
var body: some View {
let dateString = "2006-03-24"
let date = dateFromString(dateString)
Text("\(date, style: .date)")
}
func dateFromString(_ string: String) -> Date {
let dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
dateFormatter.locale = .current
dateFormatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd"
return dateFormatter.date(from: string) ?? Date()
}

Answer 2

You'll need two instances of DateFormatter - one to convert the string from API to a Date instance and the other to convert the date instance to your desired string format.
let dateFormatter1 = DateFormatter()
dateFormatter1.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd" // Format of API Date
let dateFormatter2 = DateFormatter()
dateFormatter2.dateFormat = "d MMMM, yyyy" // Desired Format
let date = dateFormatter1.date(from: "2006-03-24")!
let desiredFormat = dateFormatter2.string(from: date)
print(desiredFormat) // prints "24 March, 2006"

Answer 3

First, I encourage you to change firstFlight in RocketInfo to be a Date object, to get the correct data representation in the model. You may have to configure your JSONDecoder to parse the date string correctly:
let decoder = JSONDecoder()
let formatter = DateFormatter()
formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd"
decoder.dateDecodingStrategy = .formatted(formatter)
Then, you need another DateFormatter when you want to convert that date back into a string:
let formatter = DateFormatter()
formatter.dateFormat = "d MMMM, yyyy"
let dateString = formatter.string(from: object.firstFlight)
Please see here for the list of custom formats supported by DateFormatter:
http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr35/tr35-31/tr35-dates.html#Date_Format_Patterns
(There's also a couple of system defined formats, please see dateStyle and timeStyle in the docs.)