---
title: "description(withCalendarFormat:timeZone:locale:)"
framework: foundation
role: symbol
role_heading: Instance Method
path: "foundation/nsdate/description(withcalendarformat:timezone:locale:)"
---

# description(withCalendarFormat:timeZone:locale:)

Returns a string representation of the date formatted as specified by given conversion specifiers.

## Declaration

```swift
func description(withCalendarFormat format: String?, timeZone aTimeZone: TimeZone?, locale: Any?) -> String?
```

## Parameters

- `format`: The format for the returned string (see Date and Number Formatters in OS X v10.0 to 10.3 for a discussion of how to create the format string). Pass nil to use the default format string, “%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z” (this conforms to the international format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS ±HHMM.)
- `aTimeZone`: The time zone in which to represent the receiver. Pass nil to use the default time zone—specific to the current locale.
- `locale`: An NSDictionary object containing locale data. To use the user’s preferences, you can use [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] dictionaryRepresentation]. If you pass nil or an instance of NSLocale, NSDate uses the system default locale—this is not the same as the current user’s locale.

## Return Value

Return Value A string representation of the receiver, formatted as specified by the given conversion specifiers.

## Discussion

Discussion There are several problems with the implementation of this method that cannot be fixed for compatibility reasons. To format a date, you should use a date formatter object instead (see DateFormatter and Data Formatting Guide). You could use this method to print the current time as follows: sprintf(aString, "The current time is %s\n", [[[NSDate  date]     descriptionWithCalendarFormat:@"%H:%M:%S %Z" timeZone:nil     locale:[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] dictionaryRepresentation]]         UTF8String]);

## See Also

### Related Documentation

- [description(with:)](foundation/nsdate/description(with:).md)

### Legacy Operations

- [date(withNaturalLanguageString:)](foundation/nsdate/date(withnaturallanguagestring:).md)
- [date(withNaturalLanguageString:locale:)](foundation/nsdate/date(withnaturallanguagestring:locale:).md)
- [date(with:)](foundation/nsdate/date(with:).md)
- [init(string:)](foundation/nsdate/init(string:).md)
- [addTimeInterval(_:)](foundation/nsdate/addtimeinterval(_:).md)
- [date(withCalendarFormat:timeZone:)](foundation/nsdate/date(withcalendarformat:timezone:).md)