Easier way to find substrings within strings (Obj C)

Question

I'm just wondering if there is a simpler way to find a substring within a string in Objective C.

My string is question is this: (messy I know...)

filename.cpp - line: 1 "comment 1"\nfilename.cpp - line: 1 "comment 2"\nfilename.cpp - line: 1 "comment 3"\n

So what I want to do is extract into an array all the bits between the quotation marks. I've been messing around with the componentsSeparatedByString method to try to manipulate the string enough to leave me with the "comments" but it just seems a very messy way to do it.

Thanks for any help!

Use NSScanner to parse the string or use rangeOfString to find the index of the quotes. — rmaddy
– rmaddy, Commented Apr 20, 2013 at 18:16

Reinhard Männer · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-20 18:52:05Z

1

Maybe I don't understand your question precisely, but:
If your strings to be parsed always start with something not to be included, i.e. if the 1st substring to be extracted is not at the beginning of your string, you could use

NSMutableArray *components = [NSMutableArray arrayWithArray: [yourString componentsSeparatedByString:@"\""]];
for (int i=0; i<components.count; i++) {
   [components removeObjectAtIndex:i];
}

answered Apr 20, 2013 at 18:52

Reinhard Männer

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vikingosegundo · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-20 19:08:54Z

You can use NSScanner to scan for \" and store every other substring in an array

NSString *string = @"filename.cpp - line: 1 \"comment 1\"\nfilename.cpp - line: 1 \"comment 2\"\nfilename.cpp - line: 1 \"comment 3\"\n";
NSScanner *scanner = [NSScanner scannerWithString:string];
NSMutableArray *array = [NSMutableArray array];

while (YES) {
    NSString *s;
    [scanner scanUpToString:@"\"" intoString:NULL];
    [scanner setScanLocation:[scanner scanLocation]+1];
    [scanner scanUpToString:@"\"" intoString:&s];
    if(s)
        [array addObject:s];
    if(![scanner isAtEnd])
        [scanner setScanLocation:[scanner scanLocation]+1];
    else break;
}

result:

array = (
    comment 1,
    comment 2,
    comment 3
)

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