Reading from NSMutableArray throws exception at item 2 even though it exists - iphone

Question

I've got a file with a bunch of string in like so:
item1,01-SR,admin,Missing or broken,undefined, 16/04/2013 18:10:10;
item1,03-SR,admin,In Use,undefined, 16/04/2013 18:10:34;
item1,01-SR,admin,In Use,undefined, 16/04/2013 18:10:45;
item1,02-SR,admin,In Use,undefined, 16/04/2013 18:10:49;
item1,05,admin,In Use,undefined, 16/04/2013 18:10:56;
I'm reading the strings in and then splitting them up so I just get one string at a time. Then I want to split up the string I've got again so each CSV is it's own variable. I've tried this like so (numLines is a count of the number of lines in the file):
while (count1 < numLines) {
NSString *message = [[strings objectAtIndex: count1] copy];
NSMutableArray *items = [[fileContents componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:#";"]] mutableCopy];
NSString *items1 = [[items objectAtIndex: count1] copy];
NSLog(#"items: %#", items1);
NSMutableArray *inditems = [[items1 componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:#","]] mutableCopy];
NSString * item1 = inditems[0];
NSString * bnum1 = inditems[1];
NSString * user1 = inditems[2];
NSString * state1 = inditems[3];
NSString * gender1 = inditems[4];
NSString * tstamp1 = inditems[5];
NSLog(#"item: %#", item1);
NSLog(#"bnum: %#", bnum1);
NSLog(#"user: %#", user1);
NSLog(#"state: %#", state1);
NSLog(#"gender: %#", gender1);
NSLog(#"tstamp: %#", tstamp1);
count1++;
}
Now, this works as far as selecting one line from the file and it puts the first two items into the array and then writes the values of item1 and bnum1 to the log but then it throws an exception for some reason. Now this would usually suggest to me that item 2 doesn't exist in the array so I did a count like so:
NSLog(#"count = %d", [inditems count]);
Which correctly returns 6. I then wanted to check that it could actually read another item from the array so I did:
NSString *tstamp1 = [[inditems lastObject] copy];
Which when logged correctly returns the time stamps like so:
16/04/2013 18:10:10
So I thought "oh at least item 5 works" and tried just getting that item:
while (count1 < numLines) {
NSString *message = [[strings objectAtIndex: count1] copy];
NSMutableArray *items = [[fileContents componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:#";"]] mutableCopy];
NSString *items1 = [[items objectAtIndex: count1] copy];
NSLog(#"items: %#", items1);
NSMutableArray *inditems = [[items1 componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:#","]] mutableCopy];
NSString * item1 = inditems[0];
NSString * bnum1 = inditems[1];
NSString * tstamp1 = inditems[5];
NSLog(#"item: %#", item1);
NSLog(#"bnum: %#", bnum1);
NSLog(#"tstamp: %#", tstamp1);
count1++;
}
But that also throws an exception! I'm probably doing something stupid here, but I would appreciate any help.
Thanks!

Answer 1

My guess is your NSArray *strings is including empty value which is causing your error. You need to check it first and then do your logic.
//path is your file path
NSString* fileContents = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile:path encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:nil];
NSArray *strings = [fileContents componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet]];
for (int i = 0; i < [strings count]; i++){
if (![[strings objectAtIndex:i] isEqualToString:#""]){
//Here do your code...
}
}