in objective-c is there any easy way to add backslash in front of special characters? - objective-c

Question

Note: Not sure why this is marked as duplicate as I clearly stated that I don't want to use stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString over and over again.
I have a question regarding the special character filename.
I have implemented a program, so that when you open a file or multiple files, the program will read all these filenames and local path and store them into the NSMutableArray. This part works perfectly without a problem.
My program also need to use NSTask to manipulate these files. However, the problem is, sometimes filename will contain special characters, for example, /Users/josh/Desktop/Screen Shot 2013-03-19 at 2.05.06 PM.png.
I have to replace space with backslash and space
NSString *urlPath = [[self url] path];
urlPath = [urlPath stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:#"(" withString:#"\\("];
urlPath = [urlPath stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:#")" withString:#"\\)"];
urlPath = [urlPath stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:#" " withString:#"\\ "];
to: /Users/josh/Desktop/Screen\ Shot\ 2013-03-19\ at\ 2.05.06\ PM.png
so that I can manipulate the file properly.
Same for the ( and ). I also need to add backslash before that.
but there are too many special characters. ie.
/Users/josh/Desktop/~!##$?:<,.>%^&*()_+`-={}[]\|'';.txt
I need to change to:
/Users/josh/Desktop/\~\!#\#\$\?\:\<\,.\>\%^\&\*\(\)_+\`-\=\{\}\[\]\\\|\'\'\;.txt
and not to mention other special characters (ie. accent)
Is there any easy way to put a backslash in front of each special character, as I don't want to keep calling stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString over and over again.

Answer 1

As described in NSTask's documentation for the setArguments: method, there should be no need to do special quoting:
Discussion
The NSTask object converts both path and the strings in
arguments to appropriate C-style strings (using
fileSystemRepresentation) before passing them to the task via argv[].
The strings in arguments do not undergo shell expansion, so you do not
need to do special quoting, and shell variables, such as $PWD, are not
resolved.
If you feel it is necessary, can you please provide some examples of the commands you want to run in the NSTask?
[UPDATE]: I see in the comments that you indeed are using the NSTask to execute a bash shell with -c, which I had wondered about. I've generally used NSTask to execute the command directly rather than going through the shell, like this:
NSTask *task = [[NSTask alloc] init];
[task setLaunchPath:#"/bin/ls"];
[task setArguments:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:#"-l", self.url.path, nil]];
Can you give a more accurate example of the actual command you want to run? For example, are you piping a series of commands together? Perhaps there might be an alternate way to achieve the same results without the need for using the bash shell...

Answer 2

I think you may be able to use an NSRegularExpressionSearch search.
It would look something like this
+ (NSString *) addBackslashes: (NSString *) string
{
// First convert the name string to a pure ASCII string
NSData *asciiData = [string dataUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding allowLossyConversion:YES];
NSString *asciiString = [[[NSString alloc] initWithData:asciiData encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding] lowercaseString];
// Define the characters that we will replace
NSString *searchCharacters = #"PUT IN ALL OF YOUR SPECIAL CHARACTERS HERE";
// example NSString *searchCharacters = #"!##$%&*()";
// replace them
NSString *regExPattern = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"[%#]", searchCharacters];
string = [asciiString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:regExPattern withString: [NSString stringWithFormat:#"\\%#", regExPattern] options:NSRegularExpressionSearch range:NSMakeRange(0, asciiString.length)];
return string;
}

Answer 3

you could maintain a set of strings that need to be escaped and use NSScanner to build the new string by iterating the the source string and each time a problematic character is found u first add \\ to a destination string and continue coping the next chars.
NSString *sourceString = #"/Users/josh/Desktop/\"Screen Shot\" 2013-03-19 at 2\\05\\06 PM.png";
NSMutableString *destString = [#"" mutableCopy];
NSCharacterSet *escapeCharsSet = [NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:#" ()\\"];
NSScanner *scanner = [NSScanner scannerWithString:sourceString];
while (![scanner isAtEnd]) {
NSString *tempString;
[scanner scanUpToCharactersFromSet:escapeCharsSet intoString:&tempString];
if([scanner isAtEnd]){
[destString appendString:tempString];
}
else {
[destString appendFormat:#"%#\\%#", tempString, [sourceString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange([scanner scanLocation], 1)]];
[scanner setScanLocation:[scanner scanLocation]+1];
}
}
NSLog(#"\n%#\n%#", sourceString, destString);
result:
/Users/josh/Desktop/Screen Shot 2013-03-19 at 2.05.06 PM.png
/Users/josh/Desktop/Screen\ Shot\ 2013-03-19\ at\ 2.05.06\ PM.png