I need to find the text in an NSTextView, and save it to a file. I can do the saving fine. I have used -stringValue, and -textStorage so far, but neither have worked. When I put -stringValue in, it just gave me (null), and when I put -textStorage in, it gave me a very large chunk of nothing (like a long paragraph of invisible text).
How can I put the text from an NSTextView into an NSString?
Try
NSString *text = [[myTextView textStorage] string];
The NSTextStorage inherits from NSMutableAttributedString which inherits from NSAttributedString. The latter implements the string method.
This isn't too obvious if you just look at the NSTextView's instance methods in the documentation.
Try this:
[myTextView string];
If you are struggling to write the textView stringValue into a file try something like this:
[[myTextView string] writeToFile:#"someFile" atomically:YES encoding:NSUnicodeStringEncoding error:&error];
Hope this helps!
when setting value, use text.string = #"XXXX";
when getting value, use STRING = [text.string copy];
because if you forget copy, the mutableString will be deliver to STRING. This will raise bugs when you editing multiple things with a single textview.
In order to compile all of the information for anyone else with this question, I am answering my own question. If I am not allowed to do this, please tell me.
The code is actually extremely simple.
Files.h
#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>
#interface Files : NSObject {
IBOutlet id dataToSave;
}
- (IBAction) saveData: (id) sender;
Files.m
#implementation Files
- (IBAction) saveData: (id) sender; {
NSString *text = [[dataToSave textStorage] string];
NSLog(#"%#", text);
[text writeToFile:#"Users/justin/Desktop/test.txt atomically:YES encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:NULL];
}
Instead of voting this up, vote for the other two people that answered this.
Related
I am using NSUUID for unique ids in my app like so:
[[NSUUID UUID] UUIDString]
and as is the expected result I get an id like this one: 102A21AD-7216-4517-8A79-39776B767E72
For backend reasons I need the letters in the uuid to be lowercase. I tried to call
[[NSUUID UUID] UUIDString].lowercaseString
but the returned string is empty.
Do I really have to iterate over all of the characters in the string and convert the appropriate ones to lowercase? If so does anyone have any advice of the most efficient way to do this?
EDIT:
The way I was trying to implement this was by subclassing NSUUID and then overriding the
-(NSString*) UUIDString;
method.
My implementation of this was
-(NSString*) UUIDString{
return [super UUIDString].lowercaseString;
}
The accepted answer explains why this doesn't work.
Based on your edit to the question a little investigation is in order...
It looks like NSUUID behaves like a class cluster and you cannot sub-class it without implementing it's key methods and providing the functionality of UUID generation yourself. If you do sub-class it you get a parent class whose UUIDString is the empty string. While a standard init of the class gives you back an instance of __NSConcreteUUID whose UUIDString is more useful!
If the above is confusing the following partial implementation shows one way to do this:
#interface LowerUUID : NSUUID
#end
#implementation LowerUUID
{
NSUUID *real;
}
- (id) init
{
self = [super init];
if (self)
real = NSUUID.new;
return self;
}
- (NSString *) UUIDString
{
NSString *original = [real UUIDString];
NSString *lower = original.lowercaseString;
return lower;
}
#end
To be complete you also need to provide implementations of the other methods.
For this particular class it is unlikely you'll find this worth it, but for class clusters like NSMutableArray it does make sense.
You could submit a bug report to Apple stating the documentation does not state you cannot trivially sub-class NSUUID.
This works for me:
NSString *lower = [[[NSUUID UUID] UUIDString] lowercaseString];
I tried that and it works:
NSString *str = [[NSUUID UUID] UUIDString];
NSLog(#"1: %#", str);
NSLog(#"2: %#", str.lowercaseString);
So I am trying to concatenate a bunch of input strings together as one string so I can save that to a text file.
So far I am trying to write something like this
NSString *tempString = [[NSString alloc]initWithFormat:#"%#%#%#", text1, text2, text3];
The only problem with this is that I need a total of 30 strings stored this way. I need a way to do this without typing out each string name. Is there a way to use a for loop or something to accomplish this? Type the strings like this perhaps?
text(i)
So that the variable name would change each time it went through the for loop. I've tried doing something like this and I can't get it to work. If you can help me with this method or another way that you know to do it I would be very thankful.
Okay, so all of the answers here take the wrong approach (sorry guys).
The fundamental problem is that you are using your "text boxes" as a data source, when they should simply be views. When someone changes the text, you should immediately store them in your model (which could be a simple array) and then reference that model later. (This is part of MVC. Look it up if you aren't familiar, as you should be if you are programming for iOS!)
Here is what I would do. (I'm assuming that your "text boxes" are UITextField's.)
Set the delegate for each text field to your view controller.
Set the tag for each text field to a number which represents the order that you want the strings joined in. (ie 1-30)
If you don't have a separate class for your data model, then setup a declared property in your view controller which stores a reference to a NSMutableArray which can contain all of the strings in order. Let's call it dataSource. In viewDidLoad: set this to an actual mutable array filled with empty values (or previously stored values if you are saving them). The reason that we store empty values is so that we can replace them with the user entered strings for any index, even if they are entered out of order:
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
self.dataSource = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:20];
for(int i = 0; i < 30; i++)
[self.dataSource addObject:#""];
}
Then, use the following text field delegate method which stores the strings into the array as they are entered:
// This is called every time that a text field finishes editing.
- (void)textFieldDidEndEditing:(UITextField *)textField
{
if (textField.tag > 0)
[self.dataSource replaceObjectAtIndex:textField.tag-1 withObject:textField.text];
}
Congratulations! All of your strings are now stored in one array. Now we just have to combine them all:
NSMutableString *theString = [self.dataSource componentsJoinedByString:#""];
Note that I have NOT tested all of this so there may be typos. This should get you pointed in the right direction though!
If you set up your text boxes in Interface Builder with an IBOutletCollection(UITextField) you would have an array of text boxes that you could access the text value using KVC and join them.
//interface
...
#property (nonatomic, strong) IBOutletCollection(UITextField) NSArray *textBoxes;
//implementation
...
NSString *tempString = [[textBoxes valueForKey:#"text"]
componentsJoinedByString:#""];
Using iOS 4's IBOutletCollection
If you programmatically create your text boxes then add them to an array as you create them.
NSMutableString's appendString: method is your friend.
NSArray *strings = [NSArray arrayWithObjects: #"Hi", #" there", #" dude", nil];
NSMutableString *result = [[NSMutableString alloc] init];
for (NSString *string in strings) {
[result appendString:string];
}
NSLog(#"result: %#", result); // result: Hi there dude
I'd like to add search functionality to a TableView in my app. I populate a table with an NSArray which has x amount of Objects that contain 3 NSStrings. Here's how I construct that NSArray:
First I create a class Code.h:
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#interface Code : NSObject
#property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *codeName;
#property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *codeNumber;
#property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *codeDesc;
#end
Next, I synthesize these NSStrings in Code.m.
Now in my SearchViewController.m, Here's how I create my dataset:
NSMutableArray *codes;
codes = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
Code *c = [[Code alloc] init];
[c setCodeNumber:#"1"];
[c setCodeName:#"First Title Here"];
[c setCodeDesc:#"I might write a desc in here."];
[codes addObject:c];
c = [[Code alloc] init];
[c setCodeNumber:#"2"];
[c setCodeName:#"Second Title Here"];
[c setCodeDesc:#"2nd desc would be written here."];
[codes addObject:c];
and so on...
Here is how I display it: cellForRowAtIndexPath:
Code *c = [codes objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
NSString *fused = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%# - %#",[c codeNumber],[c codeName]];
cell.textLabel.text = fused;
return cell;
So now that you know how my data is structured and displayed, do you have an idea of how to search either the NSArray or possibly (preferably) the TableCells that have already been created?
I have been through the few tutorials online regarding Adding a Search Bar to a TableView, but all of them are written for using arrays setup using simple arrayWithObjects.
SIDETHOUGHT: Is it possible for me to construct an arrayWithObjects:#"aaa-1",#"bbb-2",#"ccc-3"... from my data? If i can manage that, I can use those tutorials to populate my cells and search them!
UPDATE:
Your second answer makes plenty more sense to me! Thanks for that. I beleive I have followed your instruction, but I am getting a "-[Code search:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x6a2eb20` when that line is hit.
I added #property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *searchString; to Code.h and synthesized it in Code.m
I added NSMutableSet *searchResults; to SearchViewController.h's #interface
I added your methods performSearchWithString and matchFound to SearchViewController.m
Directly under those I added this to call performSearchWithString
x
- (void)searchBar:(UISearchBar *)theSearchBar textDidChange:(NSString *)searchString {
NSLog(#"%#",searchString); //Just making sure searchString is set
[self performSearchWithString:searchString];
[self.tableView reloadData];
}
The error hits when [codes makeObjectsPerformSelector:#selector(search:) withObject:self]; runs. I am confused b/c it sounds like Code doesn't recognize searchString, but I know I added it in Code.h.
UPDATE:
In order to store objects in searchResults, I had to change searchResults from a NSMutableSet to a NSMutableArray and modify - (void)matchFound:(Code *) matchingCode {} to this:
-(void) matchFound:(Code *) matchingCode {
Code *match = [[Code alloc] init];
if (searchResults.count == 0) {
searchResults = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
[match setCodeName:[matchingCode codeName]];
[match setCodeNumber:[matchingCode codeNumber]];
[match setCodeDesc:[matchingCode codeDesc]];
[searchResults addObject:match];
}
else
{
match = [[Code alloc] init];
[match setCodeName:[matchingCode codeName]];
[match setCodeNumber:[matchingCode codeNumber]];
[match setCodeDesc:[matchingCode codeDesc]];
[searchResults addObject:match];
}
With a few other tweeks, I've got a working searchbar for my tableView. Thanks Tim Kemp!
Oh, also case insensitive search was what I was looking for. NSRange rangeName = [codeName rangeOfString: searchString options:NSCaseInsensitiveSearch];
I hope this question and answer will be helpful to the next developer learning objective-c with this question!
Simpler approach
You asked for a simpler solution. This one isn't nearly as flexible, but it will achieve the same things as my earlier answer for this specific case.
Once again we are going to ask Code to search its strings for us. This time, we are going to skip the SearchRequest and the block callback and implement it directly.
In your SearchViewController you will create two methods. One to do the search, and one callback to process any results as they come back. You will also need a container to store matching Code objects (more than one might match, presumably.) You will also need to add a method to Code to tell it what the search string is.
Add an ivar NSMutableSet called searchResults to SearchViewController.
Add a property of type NSString * called searchString to Code
Add the search method to SearchViewController. This is what you'll call when you want to initiate a search across all your codes:
-(void) performSearchWithString:(NSString *) searchString {
// Tell each Code what string to search for
[codes makeObjectsPerformSelector:#selector(setSearchString:) withObject:searchString];
// Make each code perform the search
[codes makeObjectsPerformSelector:#selector(search:) withObject:self];
}
Then you will also need a callback in SearchViewController. This is so that your Code objects can tell the SearchViewController that they have found a match:
-(void) matchFound:(Code *) matchingCode {
[searchResults addObject:matchingCode];
// do something with the matching code. Add it to a different table
// view, or filter it or whatever you need it to do.
}
However do note that you don't have to use the searchResults mutable set; you may well want to just call another method to immediately add the returned result to some other list on screen. It depends on your app's needs.
In Code, add a search method a bit like we had before, but instead of the SearchRequest parameter we'll pass in a reference to the SearchViewController:
- (void) search:(SearchViewController *) searchVC {
// Search each string in turn
NSRange rangeNum = [codeNumber rangeOfString : searchString];
NSRange rangeName = [codeName rangeOfString : searchString];
NSRange rangeDesc = [codeDesc rangeOfString: searchString];
if (rangeNum.location != NSNotFound || rangeName.location != NSNotFound || rangeDesc.location != NSNotFound) {
[searchVC matchFound:self];
}
}
Do you see how that works? If there's a match in any of the strings (|| means 'or') then pass self (which means exactly what it sounds like: the current object that's running this code right now) back to a method in the view controller called searchVC. This is called a callback because we are "calling back" to the object which originally sent us the message to do the search. We have to use callbacks rather than simple return types because we have used makeObjectsPerformSelector to tell every single Code in the codes array to do a search. We never explicitly called the search method ourselves, so we have no way to capture the return value from each search. That's why its return type is void.
You can extend matchFound to take an additional parameter which identifies which string the match was in (i.e. çodeNumber, codeName or codeDesc.) Look into enums as one good approach to pass around that kind of data.
Hope that's bit simpler.
Here is a link to an excellent language introduction/tutorial which will eliminate much confusion.
EDIT In your last comment you said that searchResults was null. I said to add it as an ivar somewhere in SearchViewController. In your initialiser method for SearchViewController you should call
searchResults = [[NSMutableSet alloc] initWithCapacity:50]` // Choose some sensible number other than 50; enough to hold the likely number of matching Code objects.
Alternatively you could 'lazy initialise' it in matchFound:
- (void) matchFound:(Code *) matchingCode {
if (!searchResults)
searchResults = [[NSMutableSet alloc] initWithCapacity:50];
[searchResults addObject:matchingCode];
}
Though if you do this you should be aware that anywhere else you access searchResults may find that it's null if matchCode: has never previously been called.
Original, flexible and more complicated answer
I'm a little unclear as to what you're trying to do, so I'm going with your title, "Searching each string in each object of an array." In your case, your Codes have three strings and your array has multiple Codes. I assume that you need a way to tell the caller - the code that wants to do the search - which Code matches.
Here is one approach. There are easier ways but this technique is quite flexible. Broadly, we are going to make the Code object do the work of searching its own strings. We are then going to give the Code object the ability to tell the caller (i.e. the object that owns the codes array, presumably your table view controller) whether any of its strings match the search string. We will then use NSArray's method makeObjectsPerformSelector to have to tell all of its Code objects to search themselves. We will use a block for a callback.
Firstly, add a search method to Code (in the interface, or as a category depending on your design), something like this:
-(void) search:(SearchRequest *) request {
// Search using your favourite algorithm
// eg bool matches = [searchMe [request searchString]];
if (matches) {
[request foundMatch:self];
}
}
SearchRequest is new. It's a place to tie together a search string and a callback block. It looks something like this:
#interface SearchRequest
#property (retain) NSString * searchString;
#property (copy) void (^callback)(Code *);
- (id) initWithSearchString:(NSString *) search callback:(void (^)(Code *)) callback;
- (void) foundMatch:(Code *) matchingCode;
#end
#implementation SearchRequest
// synthesize...
// initialiser sets ivars
- (void) foundMatch:(Code *) matchingCode {
callback(matchingCode);
}
The callback block is our way of communicating back to the caller.
When you want to perform a search, construct a SeachRequest object with the string you're searching for and a block which contains the method to call when you get a match.
That would look like this, in the caller:
- (void) performASearchWithString:(NSString *) searchForMe {
SearchRequest * req = [[SearchRequest alloc] initWithSearchString:searchForMe
callback:^(Code * matchingCode) {
[self foundAHit:matchingCode];
}];
[codes makeObjectsPerformSelector:#selector(search:) withObject:req];
}
You then need to implement foundAHit in your caller, which takes the matching Code and does something with it. (You don't have to use a block: you could store a reference to the caller and a selector to call on it instead. I won't go into the arguments for either case here. Other answerers can propose alternatives.)
I am curious how I might override the description method that is used when you do the following (see below) for an object. I basically want to better format the output, but am unsure about how I might go about setting this up.
NSLog(#"ARRAY: %#", myArray);
many thanks
EDIT_001
Although subclassing NSArray would have worked I instead decided that I would add a category to NSArray (having not used one before) Here is what I added ...
// ------------------------------------------------------------------- **
// CATAGORY: NSArray
// ------------------------------------------------------------------- **
#interface NSArray (displayNSArray)
-(NSString*)display;
#end
#implementation NSArray (displayNSArray)
-(NSString*)display {
id eachIndex;
NSMutableString *outString = [[[NSMutableString alloc] init] autorelease];
[outString appendString:#"("];
for(eachIndex in self) {
[outString appendString:[eachIndex description]];
[outString appendString:#" "];
}
[outString insertString:#")" atIndex:[outString length]-1];
return(outString);
}
#end
gary
If you're doing this a lot, the easiest way to reformat the display of your array would be to add a new prettyPrint category to the NSArray class.
#interface NSArray ( PrettyPrintNSArray )
- (NSSTring *)prettyPrint;
#end
#implementation NSArray ( PrettyPrintNSArray )
- (NSString *)prettyPrint {
NSMutableString *outputString = [[NSMutableString alloc] init];
for( id item in self ) {
[outputString appendString:[item description]];
}
return outputString;
}
#end
Obviously you'd need to alter the for loop to get the formatting the way you want it.
I'm assuming that you myArray variable is an instance of the NSArray/NSMutableArray class.
When NSLog() encounters the # character in its format string, it calls the -description: method on the object. This is a method on the root class, NSObject from which all other Cocoa classes inherit. -description: returns an NSString allowing any object that implements this method to be passed into NSLog(#"#",anyObject) and have a nicely formatted output. The string returned can be anything you care to construct.
For your specific problem, you could subclass NSMutableArray and override the -description: method with your own implementation. Then utilise your subclass instead of NSMutableArray.
For more information on NSObject and -description: see Apple's docs.
From Formatting string objects:
NSString supports the format characters defined for the ANSI C functionprintf(), plus ‘#’ for any object. If the object responds to the descriptionWithLocale: message, NSString sends that message to retrieve the text representation, otherwise, it sends a description message.
So to customize array conversion to string you should change NSArray descriptionWithLocale: implementation. Here's an example of how you can replace object method in run-time.
I have a method which I created that appends some new text to a UILabel. I've tried two ways of doing this (one is commented out) but both of them only update the label the first time. Any more calls to this method do not update the label.
- (void) updateLog: (NSString*) text
{
/*
NSMutableString *newText = [logLabel.text mutableCopy];
[newText appendString: text];
logLabel.text = newText;
*/
logLabel.text = [logLabel.text stringByAppendingFormat:#"%#", text];
}
I am calling the method like this (the method is in the viewController):
[viewController updateLog: #"\nStarting...\n"]; // Works
[viewController updateLog: #"Test\n"]; // Does not work
I have searched everywhere for an answer, what am I missing? Thanks!
UILabel, unless set up otherwise, only displays a single line of text.
Change the numberOfLines property if you want more.
I actually figured this out. Turns out the string WAS being successfully updated, but the label size was too small, so the text was hidden.