String madness Objective C

[MasterObiWan]

So even trying to do a simple thing like getting an index of a string is not easy in objective C.

with characterAtIndex I get handed the unicode of the string, so their must be a method to convert the unicode to string.

Were the people who created objective C kind enough to include a method to convert a unicode back to a string, or must I take out the unicode chart and do it all myself?

int hi = [@"hello world" characterAtIndex:1];
textView.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", hi];

[craig1410]

So even trying to do a simple thing like getting an index of a string is not easy in objective C.

with characterAtIndex I get handed the unicode of the string, so their must be a method to convert the unicode to string.

Were the people who created objective C kind enough to include a method to convert a unicode back to a string, or must I take out the unicode chart and do it all myself?

int hi = [@"hello world" characterAtIndex:1];
textView.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", hi];

Hi,
Have a read of this article - it might help. By the way, I'm no expert I was just intrigued by your posting and did some googling. There may be better articles/explanations/guidance available from others.

http://rosscarter.com/2008/173.html?showcommentform=1

In short, it seems a bit messy... :(

Cheers,
Craig.

[robbieduncan]

int hi = [@"hello world" characterAtIndex:1];
textView.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", hi];

This looks pretty dangerous to me: characterAtIndex returns a unichar, not an int. Whilst this may well work, I'd say it's not a good idea...

And NSString does provide a way of turning an array of characters into a string: stringWithCharacters:length: (http://developer.apple.com/DOCUMENTATION/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSString_Class/Reference/NSString.html#//apple_ref/occ/clm/NSString/stringWithCharacters:length:). Just add you character to a unichar array with a single element and call this with length 1.

[BorgCopyeditor]

A character is not a string, hence the names of the methods. (But I agree that it's confusing at first.) If you really want to get part of a string, use the "substring..." methods.
NSString *helloFirstLetter = [@"Hello" substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(0,1)];
As far as I can tell, the "characters..." methods are there for when you need to work with textual data that is not already an NSString and/or cannot easily be converted to one by the factory methods. From the linked article:

For those who need to do their own low-level processing, and who are willing to handle Unicode complications themselves, we provide access to UTF-16 directly via characterAtIndex: et al., and to other representations with getBytes:… and related methods.

[gnasher729]

So even trying to do a simple thing like getting an index of a string is not easy in objective C.

with characterAtIndex I get handed the unicode of the string, so their must be a method to convert the unicode to string.

Were the people who created objective C kind enough to include a method to convert a unicode back to a string, or must I take out the unicode chart and do it all myself?

int hi = [@"hello world" characterAtIndex:1];
textView.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", hi];

What do you actually try to achieve?

There are lots of methods that manipulate the contents of a string, and they are usually there for some reason.

[MasterObiWan]

These posts helped very much, I finally understand now why my program was crashing into pieces.

For some reason when I looked at the return value type "unichar" for characterAtIndex I thought it meant it would return unicode :rolleyes:.

[robbieduncan]

For some reason when I looked at the return value type "unichar" for characterAtIndex I thought it meant it would return unicode :rolleyes:.

Erm, it does. It means it's returning a single Unicode character.

[MasterObiWan]

Erm, it does. It means it's returning a single Unicode character.

I meant the decimal code for it.