Structure

TimeZone

Information about standard time conventions associated with a specific geopolitical region.

Overview

TimeZone defines the behavior of a time zone. Time zone values represent geopolitical regions. Consequently, these values have names for these regions. Time zone values also represent a temporal offset, either plus or minus, from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and an abbreviation (such as PST for Pacific Standard Time).

TimeZone provides two static functions to get time zone values: current and autoupdatingCurrent. The autoupdatingCurrent time zone automatically tracks updates made by the user.

Note that time zone database entries such as “America/Los_Angeles” are IDs, not names. An example of a time zone name is “Pacific Daylight Time”. Although many TimeZone functions include the word “name”, they refer to IDs.

Cocoa does not provide any API to change the time zone of the computer, or of other applications.

Topics

Getting the Current Time Zone

static var autoupdatingCurrent: TimeZone

The time zone currently used by the system, automatically updating to the user’s current preference.

static var current: TimeZone

The time zone currently used by the system.

Creating a Time Zone

init?(identifier: String)

Returns a time zone initialized with a given identifier.

init?(abbreviation: String)

Returns a time zone identified by a given abbreviation.

init?(secondsFromGMT: Int)

Returns a time zone initialized with a specific number of seconds from GMT.

static var knownTimeZoneIdentifiers: [String]

Returns an array of strings listing the identifier of all the time zones known to the system.

static var abbreviationDictionary: [String : String]

Returns the mapping of abbreviations to time zone identifiers.

Getting Time Zone Information

var identifier: String

The geopolitical region identifier that identifies the time zone.

func abbreviation(for: Date)

Returns the abbreviation for the time zone at a given date.

func secondsFromGMT(for: Date)

The current difference in seconds between the time zone and Greenwich Mean Time.

static var timeZoneDataVersion: String

Returns the time zone data version.

Working with Daylight Savings

func isDaylightSavingTime(for: Date)

Returns a Boolean value that indicates whether the receiver uses daylight saving time at a given date.

func daylightSavingTimeOffset(for: Date)

Returns the daylight saving time offset for a given date.

var nextDaylightSavingTimeTransition: Date?

The date of the next (after the current instant) daylight saving time transition for the time zone.

func nextDaylightSavingTimeTransition(after: Date)

Returns the next daylight saving time transition after a given date.

Comparing Time Zones

static func !=(TimeZone, TimeZone)

static func ==(TimeZone, TimeZone)

Indicates whether two time zones are the same.

Describing Time Zones

func localizedName(for: NSTimeZone.NameStyle, locale: Locale?)

Returns the name of the receiver localized for a given locale.

var description: String

A textual description of the time zone.

var debugDescription: String

A textual description of the time zone suitable for debugging.

var customMirror: Mirror

A mirror that reflects the time zone.

var hashValue: Int

The computed hash value of the time zone.

Using Reference Types

class NSTimeZone

An object containing information about local time conventions that bridges to TimeZone; use NSTimeZone when you need reference semantics or other Foundation-specific behavior.

typealias TimeZone.ReferenceType

An alias for this value type's equivalent reference type.

Initializers

init(from: Decoder)

Instance Methods

func encode(to: Encoder)