Stripping the 12 Hour clock suffix from an NSString - iphone

Question

I have a shortage of screen real estate for my time labels in my iPhone app.
My solution is to have the time e.g. 12:00 on one line and then if the users current locale specifies that an AM-PM is used, have these in a second label below it.
Since AM-PM also have localized variants I can't just look for the letters "AM" or "PM", then I thought about stripping the last two letters, but by checking I found out some languages uses a format like this: "F.M." "E.M". My next thought was to strip everything after the first 5 digits(12:34), but for hour intervals below 10 that is no good either.
Is there a "locale safe" way of always removing the localized suffix and move it to a new string, regardless of the users settings?
Thank you in advance:)

Answer 1

There is no locale safe way of doing that.
Use NSDateFormatter to generate two strings.
NSDateFormatter *timeOfDayFormatter = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] retain];
[timeOfDayFormatter setDateFormat:#"hh:mm"];
NSDateFormatter *amPmFormatter = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] retain];
[amPmFormatter setDateFormat:#"aa"];
NSLog(#"Time is: %# %#",
[timeOfDayFormatter stringFromDate:theDate],
[amPmFormatter stringFromDate:theDate]);
Now you can layout your user interface with the two strings.
The 24-hour format is standard where I live. I'd "force" that format on the user if screen real estate is a real problem.

Answer 2

I ended up solving it like this and then manually test it with 15+ locale settings:
NSArray *timeParts = [NSArray arrayWithArray:[[timeFormatter stringFromDate:myDate] componentsSeparatedByString:#" "]];
Then I test the timeParts array:
if ([timeParts count] > 1) {...}
If the count is 1 it is a locale without the suffix and I don't set the "AM/PM" label.
Else, I set both labels, the timeLable with [timeParts objectAtIndex:0] and the localeLabel with [timeParts objectAtIndex:1]
This seems to be a stable solution for all locales.