Parsing a arbitrary textual data format - objective-c

Question

I am trying to parse a .rtf file that was created by someone else, and I don't have control over the file contents or format. There are several blocks to the file and each block has a set of information that I need to get. Each block is set up like this:
[Title]
[Type] ([sub type])
Level: [CSV list of levels]
Components: [CSV list of components]
Time: [proprietary time format]
Length: [length value]
Target: [target text]
Dwell: [dwell time in proprietary time format]
Saves: [yes/no]
Additional Information: [additional information]
[notes]
There may be from 50 to 100 blocks like the one above in each file. I have used the NSRegularExpression class to do some other parsing in my app, but I can't even think about how to accomplish this.
As far as I can tell, each block is separated by a double line.

Answer 1

Try using a NSScanner, like this:
NSString *input =
#"[Title]\n"
#"[Type] ([sub type])\n"
#"Level: [CSV list of levels]\n"
#"Components: [CSV list of components]\n"
#"Time: [proprietary time format]\n"
#"Length: [length value]\n"
#"Target: [target text]\n"
#"Dwell: [dwell time in proprietary time format]\n"
#"Saves: [yes/no]\n"
#"Additional Information: [additional information]\n"
#"[notes]\n";
NSString *title, *type, *subType, *level, *components, *time, *length, *target, *dwell, *saves, *additional, *notes;
title = type = subType = level = components = time = length = target = dwell = saves = additional = notes = nil;
NSScanner *scanner = [NSScanner scannerWithString:input];
// read the first line into title...
[scanner scanUpToCharactersFromSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet] intoString:&title];
[scanner scanCharactersFromSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet] intoString:nil];
// read the first part of the second line into type
[scanner scanUpToString:#" (" intoString:&type];
[scanner scanString:#"(" intoString:nil];
// read the next part of the second line into subType
[scanner scanUpToString:#")" intoString:&subType];
// read the end of the line
[scanner scanUpToCharactersFromSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet] intoString:nil];
[scanner scanCharactersFromSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet] intoString:nil];
// read in level
[scanner scanString:#"Level: " intoString:nil];
[scanner scanUpToCharactersFromSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet] intoString:&level];
[scanner scanCharactersFromSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet] intoString:nil];
// read in components:
[scanner scanString:#"Components: " intoString:nil];
[scanner scanUpToCharactersFromSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet] intoString:&components];
[scanner scanCharactersFromSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet] intoString:nil];
// read in time:
[scanner scanString:#"Time: " intoString:nil];
[scanner scanUpToCharactersFromSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet] intoString:&time];
[scanner scanCharactersFromSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet] intoString:nil];
// read in length
[scanner scanString:#"Length: " intoString:nil];
[scanner scanUpToCharactersFromSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet] intoString:&length];
[scanner scanCharactersFromSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet] intoString:nil];
// complete for all other metadata
NSLog(#"%#", title);
NSLog(#"%# (%#)", type, subType);
NSLog(#"%#", level);
NSLog(#"%#", components);
NSLog(#"%#", time);
NSLog(#"%#", length);
NSLog(#"%#", target);
NSLog(#"%#", dwell);
NSLog(#"%#", saves);
NSLog(#"%#", additional);
NSLog(#"%#", notes);
This works for me, obviously complete the process for all the other fields.

Answer 2

For the time being, I can just convert the .rtf files to regular text files. This allows me to process them more easily.
Thanks for the help! I am going to look into using the NSScanner to do this more elegantly.