iPhone PList and NSDate issues - iphone

Question

I am doing:
NSString *path = [[self class] pathForDocumentWithName:#"Alarms.plist"];
NSArray *alarmDicts = [NSMutableArray arrayWithContentsOfFile:path];
if (alarmDicts == nil)
{
NSLog(#"MER. Unable to read plist file: %#", path);
path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"Alarms"
ofType:#"plist"];
alarmDicts = [NSMutableArray arrayWithContentsOfFile:path];
}
_displayedObjects = [[NSMutableArray alloc]
initWithCapacity:[alarmDicts count]];
for (NSDictionary *currDict in alarmDicts)
{
Alarm *alarm = [[Alarm alloc] initWithDictionary:currDict];
[_displayedObjects addObject:alarm];
}
pathForDocumentWithName just a helper method, assume it works (it does). I add all of the values of the plist to an object, and store it in an array. Now if I do something like this:
NSUInteger index = [indexPath row];
id alarm = [[self displayedObjects] objectAtIndex:index];
NSString *title = [alarm title];
[[cell detailTextLabel] setText:title];
It works perfectly fine. But when trying to format the NSDate type in the plist file (listed as 'datetime')
NSDate *datetime = [alarm datetime];
NSDateFormatter *formatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[formatter setDateFormat:#"hh:mm"];
[[cell textLabel] setText:[formatter stringFromDate:datetime]];
It throws the NSLog for alarmDicts being nil, and returns nil for the string. I'm out of ideas, and have been trying for a few hours to solve this. Anyone have any ideas?
Also, if I print out the description for datetime, it works perfectly. Only nils and errors out when I attempt to use the NSDateFormatter on it.

Answer 1

A massive guess, but are you sure the dates in your property list are being read in as NSDate objects? If I were you, I'd check the type of your apparent NSDate objects, e.g.
NSLog(#"%#", [[alarm datetime] class]);
I would be suspicious that they're being loaded as NSStrings, which NSDateFormatter will decline to process — but they'll still appear to log correctly.
Unrelated comment: I'm sure it's a copy and paste error only, but you're leaking 'Alarm' objects at the bottom of your first snippet of code.