I was trying to answer another question about the == operator and I created this code:
NSString *aString = #"Hello";
NSString *bString = aString;
NSString *cString = #"Hello";
if (aString == bString)
NSLog(#"CHECK 1");
if (bString == cString)
NSLog(#"CHECK 2");
if ([aString isEqual:bString])
NSLog(#"CHECK 3");
if ([aString isEqual:cString])
NSLog(#"CHECK 4");
NSLog(#"%i", aString);
NSLog(#"%i", bString);
NSLog(#"%i", cString);
But was surprised at the results:
Equal[6599:10b] CHECK 1
Equal[6599:10b] CHECK 2
Equal[6599:10b] CHECK 3
Equal[6599:10b] CHECK 4
Equal[6599:10b] 8240
Equal[6599:10b] 8240
Equal[6599:10b] 8240
Is there some compiler trickery going on here?
There is clearly string uniquing going on, at least within a single compilation unit. I recommend you take a brief tour through man gcc during which you visit all uses of "string". You'll find a few options that are directly relevant to literal NSStrings and their toll-free-bridged counterparts, CFStrings:
-fconstant-string-class=class-name sets the name of the class used to instantiate #"..." literals. It defaults to NSConstantString unless you're using the GNU runtime. (If you don't know if you are, you aren't.)
-fconstant-cfstrings enables use of a builtin to create CFStrings when you write CFSTR(...).
You can disable uniquing for C string literals using -fwritable-strings, though this option is deprecated. I couldn't come up with a combination of options that would stop the uniquing of NSString literals in an Objective-C file. (Anyone want to speak to Pascal string literals?)
You see -fconstant-cfstrings coming into play in CFString.h's definition of the CFSTR() macro used to create CFString literals:
#ifdef __CONSTANT_CFSTRINGS__
#define CFSTR(cStr) ((CFStringRef) __builtin___CFStringMakeConstantString ("" cStr ""))
#else
#define CFSTR(cStr) __CFStringMakeConstantString("" cStr "")
#endif
If you look at the implementation of the non-builtin __CFStringMakeConstantString() in CFString.c, you'll see that the function does indeed perform uniquing using a very large CFMutableDictionary:
if ((result = (CFStringRef)CFDictionaryGetValue(constantStringTable, cStr))) {
__CFSpinUnlock(&_CFSTRLock);
}
// . . .
return result;
See also responses to the question, "What's the difference between a string constant and a string literal?"
NSString is defined as an immutable type, so whenever the compiler can optimize things by combining identical strings, it should. As your code demonstrates, gcc clearly does perform this optimization for simple cases.
Well for cString and aString, C,C++, and Objective C compilers can reuse a compile time string object if it is declared in more than one location.
Maybe simple copy-on-write optimization? As all 3 strings point to the same 'set of characters' there's not point in creating separate copies until you modify one of the strings.
Probably the characters are stored in static part of memory (with the code) and NSStrings* point to that part of memory. Once you attempt to modify one of the strings it will create new string somewhere else (heap) and then reference that memory.
Related
Is there any easy way to convert an Objective-C holding class of NSStrings into parameters for a function accepting a variable list of char *? Specifically I have a function like:
-(void)someFunction:(NSSomething *) var
that I want to forward to a C function like
void someCFunction(char * var, ...)
Is there an easy way to go about this?
No, you can only do what you want if the number of arguments you're passing is known at compile time. If you just want to convert a single string, use the -UTF8String message:
// Example with two strings
NSString *str1 = ...;
NSString *str2 = ...;
someCFunction([str1 UTF8String], [str2 UTF8String]); // etc.
But if the number of strings will vary at runtime, you'll need to use a different API, if one is available. For example, if there's an API that took an array of strings, you could convert the Objective-C array into a C array:
// This function takes a variable number of strings. Note: in C/Objective-C
// (but not in C++/Objective-C++), it's not legal to convert 'char **' to
// 'char *const *', so you may sometimes need a cast to call this function
void someCFunction(const char *const *stringArray, int numStrings)
{
...
}
...
// Convert Objective-C array to C array
NSArray *objCArray = ...;
int numStrings = [objCArray count];
char **cStrArray = malloc(numStrings * sizeof(char*));
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
cStrArray[i] = [[objCArray objectAtIndex:i] UTF8String];
// Call the function; see comment above for note on cast
someCFunction((const char *const *)cStrArray, numStrings);
// Don't leak memory
free(cStrArray);
This would do the trick:
NSString *string = #"testing string"
const char * p1=[string UTF8String];
char * p2;
p2 = const_cast<char *>(p1);
Yes, this can be done, and is explained here:
How to create a NSString from a format string like #"xxx=%#, yyy=%#" and a NSArray of objects?
And here:
http://www.cocoawithlove.com/2009/05/variable-argument-lists-in-cocoa.html
With modifications for ARC here:
How to create a NSString from a format string like #"xxx=%#, yyy=%#" and a NSArray of objects?
Also, variable arguments are not statically or strongly typed, as the other poster seems to be suggesting. In fact, there is no clear indication in the callee of how many arguments you really have. Determining the number of arguments generally breaks down into having to either specify the number by an count parameter, using a null terminator, or inferring it from a format string a la (s)print* . This is frankly why the C (s)print* family of functions has been the source of many errors, now made much much safer by the XCode / Clang / GCC compiler that now warns.
As an aside, you can approach statically typed variable arguments in C++ by creating a template method that accepts an array of an unspecified size. This is generally considered bad form though as the compiler generates separate instances for each size of array seen by by the compiler (template bloat).
I want to write a function or a directive like NSLog() that takes any kind of variable, primitives and objects. In that function I want to distinguish those.
I know how it works for objects:
- (void)test:(id)object {
if ([object isKindOfClass:[NSString class]])
...
but how do I distinguish objects from structs or even integer or floats.
Something like:
"isKindOfStruct:CGRect" or "isInt"
for example?
Is this possible?
I thought since you can send everything to NSLog(#"...", objects, ints, structs) it must be possible?
Thanks for any help!
EDIT
My ultimate goal is to implement some kind of polymorphism.
I want to be able to call my function:
MY_FUNCTION(int)
MY_FUNCTION(CGRect)
MY_FUNCTION(NSString *)
...
or [self MYFUNCTION:int]...
and in MY_FUNCTION
-(void)MYFUNCTION:(???)value {
if ([value isKindOf:int])
...
else if ([value isKindOf:CGRect])
...
else if ([value isKindOfClass:[NSString class]])
...
}
I know that isKindOf doesn't exists and you can't even perform such methods on primitives. I'm also not sure about the "???" generic type of "value" in the function header.
Is that possible?
#define IS_OBJECT(T) _Generic( (T), id: YES, default: NO)
NSRect a = (NSRect){1,2,3,4};
NSString* b = #"whatAmI?";
NSInteger c = 9;
NSLog(#"%#", IS_OBJECT(a)?#"YES":#"NO"); // -> NO
NSLog(#"%#", IS_OBJECT(b)?#"YES":#"NO"); // -> YES
NSLog(#"%#", IS_OBJECT(c)?#"YES":#"NO"); // -> NO
Also, check out Vincent Gable's The Most Useful Objective-C Code I’ve Ever Written for some very handy stuff that uses the #encode() compiler directive (that) returns a string describing any type it’s given..."
LOG_EXPR(x) is a macro that prints out x, no matter what type x is, without having to worry about format-strings (and related crashes from eg. printing a C-string the same way as an NSString). It works on Mac OS X and iOS.
A function like NSLog() can tell what types to expect in its parameter list from the format string that you pass as the first parameter. So you don't query the parameter to figure out it's type -- you figure out what type you expect based on the format string, and then you interpret the parameter accordingly.
You can't pass a C struct or primitive as a parameter of type id. To do so, you'll have to wrap the primitive in an NSNumber or NSValue object.
e.g.
[self test: [NSNumber numberWithInt: 3.0]];
id is defined as a pointer to an Objective-C object.
#alex gray answer did not work(or at least did not work on iOS SDK 8.0). You can use #deepax11 answer, however I want to point how this 'magic macro' works. It relies on type encodings provided from the system. As per the Apple documentation:
To assist the runtime system, the compiler encodes the return and argument types for each method in a character string and associates the string with the method selector. The coding scheme it uses is also useful in other contexts and so is made publicly available with the #encode() compiler directive. When given a type specification, #encode() returns a string encoding that type. The type can be a basic type such as an int, a pointer, a tagged structure or union, or a class name—any type, in fact, that can be used as an argument to the C sizeof() operator.
To break the macro apart, we first get "typeOf" our variable, then call #encode() on that type, and finally compare returned value to 'object' and 'class' types from encoding table.
Full example should look like:
const char* myType = #encode(typeof(myVar));//myVar declared somewhere
if( [#"#" isEqualToString:#(myType)] || [#"#" isEqualToString:#(myType)] )
{
//myVar is object(id) or a Class
}
else if ( NSNotFound != [[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%s", myType] rangeOfCharacterFromSet:[NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:#"{}"]].location )
{
//myVar is struct
}
else if ( [#"i" isEqualToString:#(myType)] )
{
//my var is int
}
Please note that NSInteger will return int on 32-bit devices, and long on 64-bit devices. Full list of encodings:
‘c’ - char
‘i’ - int
’s’ - short
‘l’ - long
‘q’ - long long
‘C’ - unsigned char
‘I’ - unsigned int
’S’ - unsigned short
‘L’ - unsigned long
‘Q’ - unsigned long long
‘f’ - float
‘d’ - double
‘B’ - C++ bool or a C99 _Bool
‘v’ - void
‘*’ - character string(char *)
‘#’ - object(whether statically typed or typed id)
‘#’ - class object(Class)
‘:’ - method selector(SEL)
‘[<some-type>]’ - array
‘{<some-name>=<type1><type2>}’ - struct
‘bnum’ - bit field of <num> bits
‘^type’ - pointer to <type>
‘?’ - unknown type(may be used for function pointers)
Read more about Type Encodings at Apple
#define IS_OBJECT(x) ( strchr("##", #encode(typeof(x))[0]) != NULL )
This micro works which I got somewhere in stack overflow.
It's important to note that id represents any Objective-C object. And by Objective-C object, I mean one that is defined using #interface. It does not represent a struct or primitive type (int, char etc).
Also, you can only send messages (the [...] syntax) to Objective-C objects, so you cannot send the isKindOf: message to a normal struct or primitive.
But you can convert a integer etc to a NSNumber, a char* to a NSString and wrap a structure inside a NSObject-dervied class. Then they will be Objective-C objects.
As part of a unit test framework, I'm writing a function genArray that will generate NSArrays populated by a passed in generator block. So [ObjCheck genArray: genInt] would generate an NSArray of random integers, [ObjCheck genArray: genChar] would generate an NSArray of random characters, etc. In particular, I'm getting compiler errors in my implementation of genArray and genString, a wrapper around [ObjCheck genArray: genChar].
I believe Objective C can manipulate blocks this dynamically, but I don't have the syntax right.
ObjCheck.m
+ (id) genArray: (id) gen {
NSArray* arr = [NSMutableArray array];
int len = [self genInt] % 100;
int i;
for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
id value = gen();
arr = [arr arrayByAddingObject: value];
}
return arr;
}
+ (id) genString {
NSString* s = #"";
char (^g)() = ^() {
return [ObjCheck genChar];
};
NSArray* arr = [self genArray: g];
s = [arr componentsJoinedByString: #""];
return s;
}
When I try to compile, gcc complains that it can't do gen(), because gen is not a function. This makes sense, since gen is indeed not a function but an id which must be cast to a function.
But when I rewrite the signatures to use id^() instead of id, I also get compiler errors. Can Objective C handle arbitrarily typed blocks (genArray needs this), or is that too dynamic?
Given that blocks are objects, you can cast between block types and id whenever you want, though if you cast the block to the wrong block type and call it, you're going to get unexpected results (since there's no way to dynamically check at runtime what the "real" type of the block is*).
BTW, id^() isn't a type. You're thinking of id(^)(). This may be a source of compiler error for you. You should be able to update +genArray: to use
id value = ((id(^)())(gen))();
Naturally, that's pretty ugly.
*There actually is a way, llvm inserts an obj-c type-encoded string representing the type of the block into the block's internal structure, but this is an implementation detail and would rely on you casting the block to its internal implementation structure in order to extract.
Blocks are a C-level feature, not an ObjC one - you work with them analogously to function pointers. There's an article with a very concise overview of the syntax. (And most everything else.)
In your example, I'd make the gen parameter an id (^gen)(). (Or possibly make it return a void*, using id would imply to me that gen generates ObjC objects and not completely arbitrary types.)
No matter how you declare your variables and parameters, your code won't work. There's a problem that runs through all your compiler errors and it would be a problem even if you weren't doing convoluted things with blocks.
You are trying to add chars to an NSArray. You can't do that. You will have to wrap them them as some kind of Objective C object. Since your only requirement for this example to work is that the objects can be inputs to componentsJoinedByString, you can return single-character NSStrings from g. Then some variety of signature like id^() will work for genArray. I'm not sure how you parenthesize it. Something like this:
+ (id) genArray: (id^()) gen;
+ (id) genString {
...
NSString * (^g)() = ^() {
return [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%c", [ObjCheck genChar]];
};
...
}
NSString * is an id. char is not. You can pass NSString * ^() to id ^(), but you get a compiler error when you try to pass a char ^() to an id ^(). If you gave up some generality of genArray and declared it to accept char ^(), it would compile your call to genArray, but would have an error within genArray when you tried to call arrayByAddingObject and the argument isn't typed as an id.
Somebody who understands the intricacies of block syntax feel free to edit my post if I got some subtle syntax errors.
Btw, use an NSMutableArray as your local variable in genArray. Calling arrayByAddingObject over and over again will have O(n^2) time performance I imagine. You can still declare the return type as NSArray, which is a superclass of NSMutableArray, and the callers of genArray won't know the difference.
I honestly did a) search using key words and b) read the 'questions with similar titles' before asking this.
Also I tried to make this question more concise, but I had a hard time doing that in this case. If you feel the question is too wordy, I get it. Just don't try to answer.
I'm trying to write very simple objective-C programs that mirror the basic assignments in my introductory java class. I worked through an objective-c book over the summer and now I want to do lots of practice problems in objective-c, at the same time as I do java practice problems. I'm avoiding the objective-c GUI environment and just want to focus on working with the language for awhile. I still have a lot to learn about how to figure things out.
The program I'm duplicating from my java homework, is a standard type. I ask the user for number input and string input via the console. I was able to get numeric input from the console using an example I found here using scan f. (I will put the couple code lines below). But I'm unsure on how to get console input and store it in a string (NSString). I'm trying to learn to use the apple documentation and found a reference to a scan type command, but I cannot figure out how to USE the command. The one that seems likely is
scanCharactersFromSet:(NSCharacterSet )scanSet intoString:(NSString *)name;
Here's what I understand and works
int age = 0;
NSLog (#"How old are y'all?");
scanf("%d", &age);
NSLog (#"\n Wow, you are %d !", age);
But I don't understand how to pickup an NSString called 'name'. I THINK I'm supposed to make my 'name'a pointer, because the class is NSString.
(BTW I did try using scanf to pickup the string, but the compiler doesn't like me trying to use scanf in conjunction with name. It says that I shouldn't be using 'scanf' because it's expecting a different kind of data. I'm not sure where I found the data type 'i'. I was looking through my text for different ideas. I'm guessing that scanf is related to 'scanfloat' which clearly deals with numeric data, so this is not a big surprise)
I realize that 'scanf' isn't the right command (and I don't really get why I can't even find scanf in the apple documentation - maybe it's C?)
I'm guessing that scanCharactersFromSet might be the right thing to use, but I just don't understand how you figure out what goes where in the command. I guess I tend to learn by example, and I haven't found an example. I'd like to figure out how to learn properly by reading the documentation. But I'm not there yet.
NSString* name ;
scanf("%i", &name);
//scanCharactersFromSet:(NSCharacterSet *)scanSet intoString:(NSString **)name;
...
My book is oriented towards moving me into a gui environment, so it doesn't deal with input.
Thank you for any pointers you can give me.
Laurel
I would recommend ramping up on C. Objective-c is a thin layer over C and that knowledge will pay for itself over and over.
There's multiple ways in C to read:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2086237_read-string-c.html
For example:
NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
char str[50] = {0}; // init all to 0
printf("Enter you Last name: ");
scanf("%s", str); // read and format into the str buffer
printf("Your name is %s\n", str); // print buffer
// you can create an NS foundation NSString object from the str buffer
NSString *lastName = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:str];
// %# calls description o object - in NSString case, prints the string
NSLog(#"lastName=%#", lastName);
[pool drain];
return 0;
NOTE: the simple scanf is succeptible to buffer overruns. There's multiple approaches around this. see:
How to prevent scanf causing a buffer overflow in C?
Here is what Objective C looks like:
NSString *FNgetInput() {
#autoreleasepool {
return [[[NSString alloc] initWithData:[[NSFileHandle fileHandleWithStandardInput] availableData] encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding] stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet]];
}
}
The way to get data from the standard input (or any other file handle) in cocoa is to use the NSFileHandle class. Check the docs for +fileHandleWithStandardInput
Here's how to get user input using Objective-C in 2020:
main.m
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
#autoreleasepool {
// insert code here...
NSLog(#"Hello, World!");
char str[50] = {0}; // init all to 0
printf("Enter you Last name: ");
scanf("%s", str); // read and format into the str buffer
printf("Your name is %s\n", str); // print buffer
// you can create an NS foundation NSString object from the str buffer
NSString *lastName = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:str];
// %# calls description o object - in NSString case, prints the string
NSLog(#"lastName=%#", lastName);
return 0;
}
return 0;
}
Compile and run:
$ clang -framework Foundation main.m -o app
I'm using a 3rd party library for an iOS project I work on, and I'm down to one warning left in the project, namely on this line of code
[NSNumber numberWithUnsignedLongLong:'oaut']
And the warning is
Multi-character character constant
I suck at C, so I don't know how to fix this, but I'm sure the fix is relatively easy. Help?
EDIT: More context.
#implementation MPOAuthCredentialConcreteStore (KeychainAdditions)
- (void)addToKeychainUsingName:(NSString *)inName andValue:(NSString *)inValue {
NSString *serverName = [self.baseURL host];
NSString *securityDomain = [self.authenticationURL host];
// NSString *itemID = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#.oauth.%#", [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundleIdentifier], inName];
NSDictionary *searchDictionary = nil;
NSDictionary *keychainItemAttributeDictionary = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys: (id)kSecClassInternetPassword, kSecClass,
securityDomain, kSecAttrSecurityDomain,
serverName, kSecAttrServer,
inName, kSecAttrAccount,
kSecAttrAuthenticationTypeDefault, kSecAttrAuthenticationType,
[NSNumber numberWithUnsignedLongLong:"oaut"], kSecAttrType,
[inValue dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding], kSecValueData,
nil];
if ([self findValueFromKeychainUsingName:inName returningItem:&searchDictionary]) {
NSMutableDictionary *updateDictionary = [keychainItemAttributeDictionary mutableCopy];
[updateDictionary removeObjectForKey:(id)kSecClass];
SecItemUpdate((CFDictionaryRef)keychainItemAttributeDictionary, (CFDictionaryRef)updateDictionary);
[updateDictionary release];
} else {
OSStatus success = SecItemAdd( (CFDictionaryRef)keychainItemAttributeDictionary, NULL);
if (success == errSecNotAvailable) {
[NSException raise:#"Keychain Not Available" format:#"Keychain Access Not Currently Available"];
} else if (success == errSecDuplicateItem) {
[NSException raise:#"Keychain duplicate item exception" format:#"Item already exists for %#", keychainItemAttributeDictionary];
}
}
}
EDIT 2: They were attempting to meet the requirements of this by creating that NSNumber:
#constant kSecAttrType Specifies a dictionary key whose value is the item's
type attribute. You use this key to set or get a value of type
CFNumberRef that represents the item's type. This number is the
unsigned integer representation of a four-character code (e.g.,
'aTyp').
In C and Obj-C the single-quote ' is used only for single-character constants. You need to use the double-quote: "
Like so:
[NSNumber numberWithUnsignedLongLong:"oaut"]
That covers the warning, but there's also a semantic issue here. Although a single character constant, such as 'o', can be treated as an integer (and can be promoted to an unsigned long long), a "string" (char * or char []) cannot, which means you can't use "oaut" as an argument to numberWithUnsignedLongLong:
Update:
I guess the four-character code is supposed to be treated as an integer, i.e., the 8 bits of each char put in place as if they together were a 32-bit int:
char code[] = "oaut";
uint32_t code_as_int = code[0] | (code[1] << 8) | (code[2] << 16) | (code[3] << 24);
[NSNumber numberWithUnsignedLongLong:code_as_int]
although I'm not sure which endianness would be expected here, nor why this is calling for an unsigned long long, unless just to be certain there are enough bits.
Rudy's comment, now that I think of it, is correct -- multi-character constants are allowed by some compilers for exactly this purpose (it is "implementation-defined" behavior).
'oaut' (single quotes) is a character, so the compiler tries to interpret it as a multi-byte character but can't make any sense of it. That explains the error message.
I guess that if you gave a proper string, like #"oaut", you'd get another error message, since numberWithUnsignedLongLong: expects an unsigned long long, not a string or a character. Are you trying to pass a variable with the name "oaut"? If so, use
[NSNumber numberWithUnsignedLongLong: oaut];
If not, then please explain what "oaut" is.
Edit
'oaut' may actually be the original value. There are/were multi-character character constants in C. Using a (4 byte) char, used as int and promoted to unsigned long long would then be possible. This must be old code. It seems such code was accepted by CodeWarrior.
Assuming that really a multi-char char const was meant, 'oaut' looks like a "magic number" and this value was chosen because it is the beginning of "oauth". I guess it should either be value 0x6F617574 or 0x7475616F.
#Josh Caswell 's answer is partially right, the simplest and "official" solution is:
[NSNumber numberWithUnsignedInt:'oaut']
unsigned int's length is 32-bit in both 32-bit and 64-bit cpu, there's a practical example from Apple: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/samplecode/CryptoExercise/Listings/Classes_SecKeyWrapper_m.html