Objective-C Noob: How to define + call a method in main? - objective-c

Question

I wrote a method that works inside of an object, but now I want to extract it so that it's just a function. This is my broken command line tool program:
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
+ (NSMutableString *)reverseString:(NSString *)originalString {
NSMutableString *reversedString = [[NSMutableString alloc] init];
for (NSInteger i = originalString.length; i > 0; i--) {
[reversedString appendFormat:#"%c", [originalString characterAtIndex:i-1]];
}
return reversedString;
}
int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
#autoreleasepool {
NSString *originalString = #"original string";
NSMutableString *newString = [reverseString:originalString];
NSLog(#"Reversed string: %#", newString);
}
return 0;
}
My question is, how would I call the reverseString method from main()? I don't think I'm defining it properly. Do I have to declare it too? I know that the contents of my method work fine, but I don't know how to define it in a way that allows main to see it.

Answer 1

A "method" is, by definition, part of a class. There are two types, instance methods and class methods. To invoke an instance method, you need, well, an instance of the class. To invoke a class method, you don't need an instance. You can just invoke it directly on a class.
By contrast, there are also "functions". You don't need an instance or a class to invoke a function.
So, it sounds like you want a function. Functions are something that Objective-C inherits from C. The syntax for functions is different from the syntax for methods. Here's how your code might look using a function:
NSMutableString* reverseString(NSString *originalString) {
NSMutableString *reversedString = [[NSMutableString alloc] init];
for (NSInteger i = originalString.length; i > 0; i--) {
[reversedString appendFormat:#"%c", [originalString characterAtIndex:i-1]];
}
return reversedString;
}
int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
#autoreleasepool {
NSString *originalString = #"original string";
NSMutableString *newString = reverseString(originalString);
NSLog(#"Reversed string: %#", newString);
}
return 0;
}
By the way, your code does not "work fine". You can't iterate through a string by what it calls "characters" and treat all of them as independent. What NSString calls "characters" are actually UTF-16 code units. Not all Unicode characters can be expressed as single UTF-16 code units. Some need to use two code units in what's called a surrogate pair. If you split up and reverse a surrogate pair, you'll get an invalid string.
As a separate issue, Unicode has combining marks. For example, "é" can be expressed as U+0065 LATIN SMALL LETTER E followed by U+0301 COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT. Again, if you reorder those "characters", the accent will combine with a different character (or fail to combine at all).
The correct way to iterate through the composed character sequences of a string is to use the -[NSString enumerateSubstringsInRange:options:usingBlock:] method with the NSStringEnumerationByComposedCharacterSequences option.

Answer 2

By "I want to extract it so that it's just a function" you're implicitly saying "I want a C-style function, not an Objective-C class method". C-style functions are declared and called differently (blame history).
static NSMutableString * reverseString(NSString * originalString) {
...
}
...
NSMutableString *newString = reverseString(originalString);