suppose I have string like "this str1ng for test" now i want to check if character at position [i-1] and [i+1] are both alphabet but character at [i] is number, like this example in word "str1ng" then character at position [i] replaced by appropriate alphabet.
or vice versa.
I need this for post processing for output of OCR. TQ
You might have an easier time using Regular Expressions.
NSString are immutable, so you'll have to create a new NSMutableString from it, and mutate this copy, or to allocate a unichar* buffer, copy data from the NSString, perform the correction, and then recreate a new NSString from the result. Once you're working on a mutable copy of the string, you can use whatever algorithm you want.
So you'll need to have a function like that:
- (NSString*)correctOCRErrors:(NSString*)string
{
BOOL hasError = NO;
for (int i = 0; i < [string length]; ++ i)
{
if (isIncorrect([string characterAtIndex:i]))
{
hasError = YES;
break;
}
}
if (hasError)
{
unichar* buffer = (unichar*)malloc([string length]);
for (int i = 0; i < [string length]; ++ i)
{
unichar chr = [string characterAtIndex:i];
if (isIncorrect(chr))
chr = correctChar(chr);
buffer[i] = chr;
}
string = [[[NSString alloc] initWithCharactersNoCopy:buffer length:[string length] freeWhenDone:YES] autorelease];
}
return string;
}
You can access character in a NSString by passing a message charAtIndex:(NSUInteger)index.
And now you can get the ascii value at the particular index you are interested in and change it according to your requirement.
NSString Ref
Hope this is helpful !
Related
I am working with a Objective-C Application, specifically I am gathering the dictionary representation of NSUserDefaults with this code:
NSUserDefaults *defaults = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
NSDictionary *userDefaultsDict = [defaults dictionaryRepresentation];
While enumerating keys and objects of the resulting dict, sometimes I find a kind of opaque string that you can see in the following picture:
So it seems like an encoding problem.
If I try to print description of the string, the debugger correctly prints:
Printing description of obj:
tsuqsx
However, if I try to write obj to a file, or use it in any other way, I get an unreadable output like this:
What I would like to achieve is the following:
Detect in some way that the string has the encoding problem.
Convert the string to UTF8 encoding to use it in the rest of the program.
Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks
EDIT: Very Hacky possible Solution that helps explaining what I am trying to do.
After trying all possible solutions based on dataUsingEncoding and back, I ended up with the following solution, absolutely weird, but I post it here, in the hope that it can help somebody to guess the encoding and what to do with unprintable characters:
- (BOOL)isProblematicString:(NSString *)candidateString {
BOOL returnValue = YES;
if ([candidateString length] <= 2) {
return NO;
}
const char *temp = [candidateString UTF8String];
long length = temp[0];
char *dest = malloc(length + 1);
long ctr = 1;
long usefulCounter = 0;
for (ctr = 1;ctr <= length;ctr++) {
if ((ctr - 1) % 3 == 0) {
memcpy(&dest[ctr - usefulCounter - 1],&temp[ctr],1);
} else {
if (ctr != 1 && ctr < [candidateString length]) {
if (temp[ctr] < 0x10 || temp[ctr] > 0x1F) {
returnValue = NO;
}
}
usefulCounter += 1;
}
}
memset(&dest[length],0,1);
free(dest);
return returnValue;
}
- (NSString *)utf8StringFromUnknownEncodedString:(NSString*)originalUnknownString {
const char *temp = [originalUnknownString UTF8String];
long length = temp[0];
char *dest = malloc(length + 1);
long ctr = 1;
long usefulCounter = 0;
for (ctr = 1;ctr <= length;ctr++) {
if ((ctr - 1) % 3 == 0) {
memcpy(&dest[ctr - usefulCounter - 1],&temp[ctr],1);
} else {
usefulCounter += 1;
}
}
memset(&dest[length],0,1);
NSString *returnValue = [[NSString alloc] initWithUTF8String:dest];
free(dest);
return returnValue;
}
This returns me a string that I can use to build a full UTF8 string. I am looking for a clean solution. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks
We're talking about a string which comes from the /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist
(key com.apple.preferences.timezone.new.selected_city).
NSString *city = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults]
stringForKey:#"com.apple.preferences.timezone.new.selected_city"];
NSLog(#"%#", city); // \^Zt\^\\^]s\^]\^\u\^V\^_q\^]\^[s\^W\^Zx\^P
(lldb) p [city description]
(__NSCFString *) $1 = 0x0000600003f6c240 #"\x1at\x1c\x1ds\x1d\x1cu\x16\x1fq\x1d\x1bs\x17\x1ax\x10"
What I would like to achieve is the following:
Detect in some way that the string has the encoding problem.
Convert the string to UTF8 encoding to use it in the rest of the program.
&
After trying all possible solutions based on dataUsingEncoding and back.
This string has no encoding problem and characters like \x1a, \x1c, ... are valid characters.
You can call dataUsingEncoding: with ASCII, UTF-8, ... but all these characters will still be
present. They're called control characters (or non-printing characters). The linked Wikipedia page explains what these characters are and how they're defined in ASCII, extended ASCII and unicode.
What you're looking for is a way how to remove control characters from a string.
Remove control characters
We can create a category for our new method:
#interface NSString (ControlCharacters)
- (NSString *)stringByRemovingControlCharacters;
#end
#implementation NSString (ControlCharacters)
- (NSString *)stringByRemovingControlCharacters {
// TODO Remove control characters
return self;
}
#end
In all examples below, the city variable is created in this way ...
NSString *city = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults]
stringForKey:#"com.apple.preferences.timezone.new.selected_city"];
... and contains #"\x1at\x1c\x1ds\x1d\x1cu\x16\x1fq\x1d\x1bs\x17\x1ax\x10". Also all
examples below were tested with the following code:
NSString *cityWithoutCC = [city stringByRemovingControlCharacters];
// tsuqsx
NSLog(#"%#", cityWithoutCC);
// {length = 6, bytes = 0x747375717378}
NSLog(#"%#", [cityWithoutCC dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]);
Split & join
One way is to utilize the NSCharacterSet.controlCharacterSet.
There's a stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:
method (NSString), but it removes these characters from the beginning/end only,
which is not what you're looking for. There's a trick you can use:
- (NSString *)stringByRemovingControlCharacters {
NSArray<NSString *> *components = [self componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:NSCharacterSet.controlCharacterSet];
return [components componentsJoinedByString:#""];
}
It splits the string by control characters and then joins these components back. Not a very efficient way, but it works.
ICU transform
Another way is to use ICU transform (see ICU User Guide).
There's a stringByApplyingTransform:reverse:
method (NSString), but it only accepts predefined constants. Documentation says:
The constants defined by the NSStringTransform type offer a subset of the functionality provided by the underlying ICU transform functionality. To apply an ICU transform defined in the ICU User Guide that doesn't have a corresponding NSStringTransform constant, create an instance of NSMutableString and call the applyTransform:reverse:range:updatedRange: method instead.
Let's update our implementation:
- (NSString *)stringByRemovingControlCharacters {
NSMutableString *result = [self mutableCopy];
[result applyTransform:#"[[:Cc:] [:Cf:]] Remove"
reverse:NO
range:NSMakeRange(0, self.length)
updatedRange:nil];
return result;
}
[:Cc:] represents control characters, [:Cf:] represents format characters. Both represents the same character set as the already mentioned NSCharacterSet.controlCharacterSet. Documentation:
A character set containing the characters in Unicode General Category Cc and Cf.
Iterate over characters
NSCharacterSet also offers the characterIsMember: method. Here we need to iterate over characters (unichar) and check if it's a control character or not.
Let's update our implementation:
- (NSString *)stringByRemovingControlCharacters {
if (self.length == 0) {
return self;
}
NSUInteger length = self.length;
unichar characters[length];
[self getCharacters:characters];
NSUInteger resultLength = 0;
unichar result[length];
NSCharacterSet *controlCharacterSet = NSCharacterSet.controlCharacterSet;
for (NSUInteger i = 0 ; i < length ; i++) {
if ([controlCharacterSet characterIsMember:characters[i]] == NO) {
result[resultLength++] = characters[i];
}
}
return [NSString stringWithCharacters:result length:resultLength];
}
Here we filter out all characters (unichar) which belong to the controlCharacterSet.
Other ways
There're other ways how to iterate over characters - for example - Most efficient way to iterate over all the chars in an NSString.
BBEdit & others
Let's write this string to a file:
NSString *city = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults]
stringForKey:#"com.apple.preferences.timezone.new.selected_city"];
[city writeToFile:#"/Users/zrzka/city.txt"
atomically:YES
encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding
error:nil];
It's up to the editor how all these controls characters are handled/displayed. Here's en example - Visual Studio Code.
View - Render Control Characters off:
View - Render Control Characters on:
BBEdit displays question marks (upside down), but I'm sure there's a way how to
toggle control characters rendering. Don't have BBEdit installed to verify it.
I have a game that renders the player's nickname.
Normally, I use a nice, styled, bitmap font to render the nickname. However, I only have bitmaps for "normal" characters - A,B,C,...,1,2,3,...!##$%^,.... There are no bitmaps for Chinese, Japanese or whatever other "fancy" characters in any other language.
Trying to render such text with a bitmap will crash because I don't supply such bitmaps. Therefore I decided to detect whether the given string was a "fancy" string, and if that was the case, render the nickname using some generated system font.
How can I detect if a string has fancy characters? My current solution is something like
-(BOOL)isNormalText:(NSString *)text {
char accepted[] = {"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890!##$%^&*()_+{}/\\\"\'?.,"};
for (int i = 0; i < [text length]; ++i) {
char character = [text characterAtIndex:i];
BOOL found = NO;
for (int j = 0; j < 84 && !found; ++j) {
char acceptedChar = accepted[j];
if (character == acceptedChar) {
found = YES;
}
}
if (!found) {
return NO;
}
}
return YES;
}
Which does NOT work, I think. Because a fancy character is not one character - it is a sequence like "\u123".
I have seen a question, in Java, about something similar here: How to check if the word is Japanese or English?
They check if the character value is within the 255 range. But when I do this check in Objective-C, it tells me it is redundant because a char will always be within such range - which makes sense as I imagine the fancy characters to be actually a sequence like "\u123"...
Use an NSCharacterSet, fill it with the characters that you have bitmaps for, then invert the set so that it represents all characters that you don't have. Then use -[NSString rangeOfCharacterFromSet:]. If it returns NSNotFound then the string contains only valid characters.
Just as an example to illustrate what I mean:
- (BOOL) isNormalText:(NSString *) str
{
if (str == nil)
return NO;
NSCharacterSet *allowedChars = [NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:#"ABCDEFG"];
NSCharacterSet *notAllowedChars = [allowedChars invertedSet];
return [str rangeOfCharacterFromSet:notAllowedChars].location == NSNotFound;
}
Use regular expression checking
-(BOOL)isNormalText:(NSString *)text {
NSString * regex = #"(^[A-Za-z0-9]*$)";
NSPredicate * pred = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"SELF MATCHES %#", regex];
BOOL isMatch = [pred evaluateWithObject:text];
return isMatch;
}
Here's my program so far. My intention is to have it so the if statement compares the letter in the string letterGuessed to a character in the string userInputPhraseString. Here's what I have. While coding in xCode, I get an "expected '['"error. I have no idea why.
NSString *letterGuessed = userInputGuessedLetter.text;
NSString *userInputPhraseString = userInputPhraseString.text;
int loopCounter = 0;
int stringLength = userInputPhraseString.length;
while (loopCounter < stringLength){
if (guessedLetter isEqualToString:[userInputPhraseString characterAtIndex:loopIndexTwo])
{
//if statement true
}
loopCounter++;
}
You are missing enclosing square brackets on this line:
if (guessedLetter isEqualToString:[userInputPhraseString characterAtIndex:loopIndexTwo])
It should be:
if ([guessedLetter isEqualToString:[userInputPhraseString characterAtIndex:loopIndexTwo]])
Edit that won’t fix your problem, though, because characterAtIndex: returns a unichar, not an NSString.
It's not clear what you are trying to do.. But I suppose that letterGuessed has one character... And that userInputPhraseString has many characters. So you want to know if letterGuessed is inside userInputPhraseString correct?
This is one solution without loops involved.. I replaced the input with fixed values for testing and tested the code.. It works.
NSString *letterGuessed = #"A"; //Change to your inputs
NSString *userInputPhraseString = #"BBBA"; //Since it has A it will be true in the test
NSCharacterSet *cset = [NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:letterGuessed];
NSRange range = [userInputPhraseString rangeOfCharacterFromSet:cset];
if (range.location != NSNotFound) { //Does letterGuessed is in UserInputPhraseString?
NSLog(#"YES"); //userInput Does contain A...
} else {
NSLog(#"NO");
}
In regards to your code... I fixed a couple of errors, first you are trying to get a UniChar (Integer) value for the character and want to compare it to a NSString which is an Object. Also fixed a couple of issues with syntax you had and used the right approach which is to return a range of characters. Again for doing what you want to accomplish the example above is the best approach I know, but for the sake of learning, here is your code fixed.
NSString *letterGuessed = #"A"; //Change to your inputs
NSString *userInputPhraseString = #"BBBA"; //Since it has A it will be true in the test
NSInteger loopCounter = 0; //Use NSInteger instead of int.
NSInteger stringLength = userInputPhraseString.length;
BOOL foundChar = NO; //Just for the sake of returning NOT FOUND in NSLOG
while (loopCounter < stringLength){
//Here we will get a letter for each iteration.
NSString *scannedLetter = [userInputPhraseString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(loopCounter, 1)]; // Removed loopCounterTwo
if ([scannedLetter isEqualToString:letterGuessed])
{
NSLog(#"FOUND CHARACTER");
foundChar = YES;
}
loopCounter++;
}
if (!foundChar) NSLog(#"NOT FOUND");
NSRange holds the position, length.. So we move to a new position on every iteration and then get 1 character.
Also if this approach is what you want, I would strongly suggest a for-loop.
please help me with this problem.
I want to check if the targetString match the keyword or not. Consider some character may different, but should still return true.
Example:
targetString = #"#ß<"
keyword = #"abc", #"∂B(", #"#Aß<"
result: all must return true.
(Matched.targetString and all keyword are the same.)
Consider me have an array, contains list of character set that can be the same:
NSArray *variants = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:#"aA#∂", #"bBß", #"c©C<(", nil]
So that when matching, with this rule, it can match as the example above.
Here is what i've done so far (using recursion):
- (BOOL) test:(NSString*)aString include:(NSString*) keyWord doTrim:(BOOL)doTrim {
// break recursion.
if([aString length] < [keyWord length]) return false;
// First, loop through each keyword's character
for (NSUInteger i = 0; i < [keyWord length]; i++) {
// Get #"aA#∂", #"bBß", #"c©C<(" or only the character itself.
// like, if the keyword's character is A, return the string #"aA#∂".
// If the character is not in the variants set, eg. P, return #"P"
char c = [keyWord characterAtIndex:i];
NSString *rs = [self variantsWithChar:c];
// Check if rs (#"aA#∂" or #"P") contains aString[i] character
if([rs rangeOfString:[NSString stringWithCharacters:[aString characterAtIndex:i] length:1]].location == NSNotFound) {
// If not the same char, remove first char in targetString (aString), recursion to match again.
return [self test:[aString substringFromIndex:1] include:keyWord doTrim:NO];
}
}
// If all match with keyword, return true.
return true;
}
- (NSString *) variantsWithChar:(char) c {
for (NSString *s in self.variants) {
if ([s rangeOfString:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%c",c]].location != NSNotFound) {
return s;
}
}
return [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%c", c];
}
The main problem is, variantsWithChar: doesn't return the correct string. I don't know which datatype and which function should I use here. Please help.
For thou who know ruby, here's the example in ruby. It work super fine!
require 'test/unit/assertions'
include Test::Unit::Assertions
class String
def matching?(keyword)
length >= keyword.length && (keyword.chars.zip(chars).all? { |cs| variants(cs[0]).include?(cs[1]) } || slice(1, length - 1).matching?(keyword))
end
private
VARIANTS = ["aA#∂", "bBß", "c©C<("]
def variants(c)
VARIANTS.find { |cs| cs.include?(c) } || c
end
end
assert "abc".matching?("#ß<")
PS: The fact is, it's containt a japanese character set that sounds the same (like あア, いイ... for thou who know japanese)
PS 2: Please feel free to edit this Question, since my engrish is sooo bad. I may not tell all my thought.
PS 3: And, maybe some may comment about the performance. Like, search about 10,000 target words, with nearly 100 variants, each variant have at most 4 more same characters.
So first off, ignore comments about ASCII and stop using char. NSString and CFString use unichar
If what you really want to do is transpose hiragana and katakana you can do that with CFStringTransform()
It wraps the ICU libraries included in OS X and iOS.
It makes it very simple.
Search for that function and you will find examples of how to use it.
After a while (a day) working on the code above, I finally get it through. But don't know about the performance. Someone comment and help me improve about performance, please. Thanks.
- (BOOL) test:(NSString*)aString include:(NSString*) keyWord doTrim:(BOOL)doTrim {
// break recursion.
if([aString length] < [keyWord length]) return false;
// First, loop through each keyword's character
for (NSUInteger i = 0; i < [keyWord length]; i++) {
// Get #"aA#∂", #"bBß", #"c©C<(" or only the character itself.
// like, if the keyword's character is A, return the string #"aA#∂".
// If the character is not in the variants set, eg. P, return #"P"
NSString* c = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%C", [keyWord characterAtIndex:i]];
NSString *rs = [self variantsWithChar:c];
NSString *theTargetChar = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%C", [aString characterAtIndex:i]];
// Check if rs (#"aA#∂" or #"P") contains aString[i] character
if([rs rangeOfString:theTargetChar].location == NSNotFound) {
// If not the same char, remove first char in targetString (aString), recursion to match again.
return [self test:[aString substringFromIndex:1] include:keyWord doTrim:NO];
}
}
// If all match with keyword, return true.
return true;
}
If you remove all comment, it'll be pretty short...
////////////////////////////////////////
- (NSString *) variantsWithChar:(NSString *) c{
for (NSString *s in self.variants) {
if ([s rangeOfString:c].location != NSNotFound) {
return s;
}
}
return c;
}
You could try comparing ascii values of the japanese characters in the variants's each character's ascii value. These japanese characters aren't treated like usual characters or string. Hence, string functions like rangeOfString won't work on them.
to be more precise: have a look at the following code.
it will search for "∂" in the string "aA#∂"
NSString *string = #"aA#∂";
NSMutableSet *listOfAsciiValuesOfString = [self getListOfAsciiValuesForString:string]; //method definition given below
NSString *charToSearch = #"∂";
NSNumber *ascii = [NSNumber numberWithInt:[charToSearch characterAtIndex:0]];
int countBeforeAdding = [listOfAsciiValuesOfString count],countAfterAdding = 0;
[listOfAsciiValuesOfString addObject:ascii];
countAfterAdding = [listOfAsciiValuesOfString count];
if(countAfterAdding == countBeforeAdding){ //element found
NSLog(#"element exists"); //return string
}else{
NSLog(#"Doesnt exists"); //return char
}
===================================
-(NSMutableSet*)getListOfAsciiValuesForString:(NSString*)string{
NSMutableSet *set = [[NSMutableSet alloc] init];
for(int i=0;i<[string length];i++){
NSNumber *ascii = [NSNumber numberWithInt:[string characterAtIndex:i]];
[set addObject:ascii];
}
return set;
}
How can I enumerate NSString by pulling each unichar out of it? I can use characterAtIndex but that is slower than doing it by an incrementing unichar*. I didn't see anything in Apple's documentation that didn't require copying the string into a second buffer.
Something like this would be ideal:
for (unichar c in string) { ... }
or
unichar* ptr = (unichar*)string;
You can speed up -characterAtIndex: by converting it to it's IMP form first:
NSString *str = #"This is a test";
NSUInteger len = [str length]; // only calling [str length] once speeds up the process as well
SEL sel = #selector(characterAtIndex:);
// using typeof to save my fingers from typing more
unichar (*charAtIdx)(id, SEL, NSUInteger) = (typeof(charAtIdx)) [str methodForSelector:sel];
for (int i = 0; i < len; i++) {
unichar c = charAtIdx(str, sel, i);
// do something with C
NSLog(#"%C", c);
}
EDIT: It appears that the CFString Reference contains the following method:
const UniChar *CFStringGetCharactersPtr(CFStringRef theString);
This means you can do the following:
const unichar *chars = CFStringGetCharactersPtr((__bridge CFStringRef) theString);
while (*chars)
{
// do something with *chars
chars++;
}
If you don't want to allocate memory for coping the buffer, this is the way to go.
Your only option is to copy the characters into a new buffer. This is because the NSString class does not guarantee that there is an internal buffer you can use. The best way to do this is to use the getCharacters:range: method.
NSUInteger i, length = [string length];
unichar *buffer = malloc(sizeof(unichar) * length);
NSRange range = {0,length};
[string getCharacters:buffer range:range];
for(i = 0; i < length; ++i) {
unichar c = buffer[i];
}
If you are using potentially very long strings, it would be better to allocate a fixed size buffer and enumerate the string in chunks (this is actually how fast enumeration works).
I created a block-style enumeration method that uses getCharacters:range: with a fixed-size buffer, as per ughoavgfhw's suggestion in his answer. It avoids the situation where CFStringGetCharactersPtr returns null and it doesn't have to malloc a large buffer. You can drop it into an NSString category, or modify it to take a string as a parameter if you like.
-(void)enumerateCharactersWithBlock:(void (^)(unichar, NSUInteger, BOOL *))block
{
const NSInteger bufferSize = 16;
const NSInteger length = [self length];
unichar buffer[bufferSize];
NSInteger bufferLoops = (length - 1) / bufferSize + 1;
BOOL stop = NO;
for (int i = 0; i < bufferLoops; i++) {
NSInteger bufferOffset = i * bufferSize;
NSInteger charsInBuffer = MIN(length - bufferOffset, bufferSize);
[self getCharacters:buffer range:NSMakeRange(bufferOffset, charsInBuffer)];
for (int j = 0; j < charsInBuffer; j++) {
block(buffer[j], j + bufferOffset, &stop);
if (stop) {
return;
}
}
}
}
The fastest reliable way to enumerate characters in an NSString I know of is to use this relatively little-known Core Foundation gem hidden in plain sight (CFString.h).
NSString *string = <#initialize your string#>
NSUInteger stringLength = string.length;
CFStringInlineBuffer buf;
CFStringInitInlineBuffer((__bridge CFStringRef) string, &buf, (CFRange) { 0, stringLength });
for (NSUInteger charIndex = 0; charIndex < stringLength; charIndex++) {
unichar c = CFStringGetCharacterFromInlineBuffer(&buf, charIndex);
}
If you look at the source code of these inline functions, CFStringInitInlineBuffer() and CFStringGetCharacterFromInlineBuffer(), you'll see that they handle all the nasty details like CFStringGetCharactersPtr() returning NULL, CFStringGetCStringPtr() returning NULL, defaulting to slower CFStringGetCharacters() and caching the characters in a C array for fastest access possible. This API really deserves more publicity.
The caveat is that if you initialize the CFStringInlineBuffer at a non-zero offset, you should pass a relative character index to CFStringInlineBuffer(), as stated in the header comments:
The next two functions allow fast access to the contents of a string, assuming you are doing sequential or localized accesses. To use, call CFStringInitInlineBuffer() with a CFStringInlineBuffer (on the stack, say), and a range in the string to look at. Then call CFStringGetCharacterFromInlineBuffer() as many times as you want, with a index into that range (relative to the start of that range). These are INLINE functions and will end up calling CFString only once in a while, to fill a buffer. CFStringGetCharacterFromInlineBuffer() returns 0 if a location outside the original range is specified.
I don't think you can do this. NSString is an abstract interface to a multitude of classes that make no guarantees about the internal storage of the character data, so it's entirely possible there is no character array to get a pointer to.
If neither of the options mentioned in your question are suitable for your app, I'd recommend either creating your own string class for this purpose, or using raw malloc'ed unichar arrays instead of string objects.
This will work:
char *s = [string UTF8String];
for (char *t = s; *t; t++)
/* use as */ *t;
[Edit] And if you really need unicode characters then you have no option but to use length and characterAtIndex. From the documentation:
The NSString class has two primitive methods—length and characterAtIndex:—that provide the basis for all other methods in its interface. The length method returns the total number of Unicode characters in the string. characterAtIndex: gives access to each character in the string by index, with index values starting at 0.
So your code would be:
for (int index = 0; index < string.length; index++)
{
unichar c = [string characterAtIndex: index];
/* ... */
}
[edit 2]
Also, don't forget that NSString is 'toll-free bridged' to CFString and thus all the non-Objective-C, straight C-code interface functions are usable. The relevant one would be CFStringGetCharacterAtIndex