Filtering string for date - objective-c

Question

I have a string that looks like this:
"51403074 0001048713 1302130446 TOMTOM101 Order
51403074-3-278065518: ontvangen"
This string is filtered from a array that contains similar strings. This string contains some relevant data and some irrelevant data. The only part of the string that is relevant is:1302130446. This number represents a date and time (yy/mm/dd/hh/mm). Because this part is a date and time its not the same every time.
How can I filter this string so that I will have a string that only contains the relevant part.
Sorry still learning IOS dev.

Answer 1

If the date string will always be the third word you could split the NSString into a word array as
NSString *myString = #"This is a test";
NSArray *myWords = [myString componentsSeparatedByString:#" "];
and then access the third item in the array to get the string you wanted.
EDIT (due to comment): To be sure that you get the correct string from your word array you need a unique identifier for your string. It could be that 'TOMTOM101' always follows the date string or something thing else...
**EDIT 2 (due to need of example code)
NSUInteger counter = 0;
NSUInteger dateStringIndex = 0;
for(NSString *str in myWords) {
counter ++;
if([str isEqualToString:#"TOMTOM101"]) {
dateStringIndex = counter - 1;
//We now know which word is the date number, so we can stop looping.
break;
}
}
(not compiled code)

Answer 2

Seems like the relevant string is 10 characters in length.
If the position of this relevant string is fixed in your original string (comes right after TOMTOM),
then you can do something like this:-
iterate through the length of the original string, and look for a block that is = 'TOMTOM'
while iterating add a counter value for count, update it by 1, whenever you meet a 'space'....aka when you meet the first 'space', add a counter value, say count = 1, then when u meet the 2nd space, update count = 2.. and so on,
when you find TOMTOM, your counter will have a value, say =4, therefore you know date string is located after count is set = 3 and before count is set = 4.
while count = 3 do: extract 'relevant string from original string'. When u come across the next 'space', update count = 4, and hence stop extracting from original string.

Answer 3

All you have to do is separate the original string with one-letter space.
NSString *whatever = #"51403074 0001048713 1302130446 TOMTOM101 Order 51403074-3-278065518: ontvangen"
NSString *mydatestring = [self NthString:whatever :#" " :2];
- (NSString *)NthString:(NSString *)source:(NSString *)part:(NSInteger)i {
if (i >= 0) {
NSArray* components = [source componentsSeparatedByString:part];
return [components objectAtIndex:i];
}
else {
return #"";
}
}