How to find weekday from today's date using NSDate?

Question

I know that I can figure out today's date by [NSDate date]; but how would I find out today day of the week, like Saturday, Friday etc.

I know that %w can be used in NSDateFormatter, but I don't know to use it.

Answer 1

NSCalendar* cal = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];
NSDateComponents* comp = [cal components:NSCalendarUnitWeekday fromDate:[NSDate date]];
return [comp weekday]; // 1 = Sunday, 2 = Monday, etc.

See @HuguesBR's answer if you just need the weekday without other components (requires iOS 8+).

NSInteger weekday = [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] component:NSCalendarUnitWeekday 
                                                   fromDate:[NSDate date]];

(If you don't get a correct answer, check if you have mistyped NSCalendarUnitWeekday with other week-related components like NSCalendarUnitWeekdayOrdinal, etc.)

---

Swift 3:

let weekday = Calendar.current.component(.weekday, from: Date())
// 1 = Sunday, 2 = Monday, etc.

Answer 2

If someone is interested in a Swift solution, then use:

import Foundation

let weekday = NSCalendar.current.component(.weekday, from: Date())
print(weekday) // => prints the weekday number 1-7 (Sunday through Saturday) 

See the demo.

Update: fixed to work in Swift 3

Answer 3

This is updated version valid for iOS 8

NSCalendar* currentCalendar = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];
NSDateComponents* dateComponents = [currentCalendar components:NSWeekdayCalendarUnit fromDate:[NSDate date]];
return [dateComponents weekday];

Answer 4

Shorter version

NSCalendarUnit dayOfTheWeek = [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] component:NSCalendarUnitWeekday fromDate:yourDate];

Answer 5

let today = Date()
let day = Calendar.current.dateComponents([.weekday], from: today).weekday
if ( day == 5)
    {
        yourText.text = "Thursday"
    }