Introduction to Data Formatting Guide for Core Foundation

Formatters define a common interface for creating, interpreting, and validating the textual representation of objects. The Core Foundation provides two opaque types, CFDateFormatter and CFNumberFormatter, that you use to format dates and numbers respectively. The Foundation framework provides two analogous classes, NSDateFormatter and NSNumberFormatter. Although the formatter objects in Core Foundation and Foundation are similar, they are not toll-free bridged.

This document assumes you are familiar with the concepts presented in Data Formatting Guide.