how to split a string on the iPhone? - iphone

Question

I have got below value(dynamic) from the server:
drwxr-xr-x 9 0 0 4096 Jan 10 05:30 California
Now i want to get valu like this.
drwxr-xr-x
9
0
0
4096
Jan 10
05:30
California
Please help me for this question

Answer 1

you can try smth like this
NSArray* components = [initialString componentsSeparatedByString:#" "];

Answer 2

See NSString componentsSeparatedByString for your answer.

Answer 3

As others have mentioned, you can use NSString's member function componentsSeparatedByString: or componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:
As an alternative (for more powerful tokenizing), look into the Objective-C NSScanner class in the foundation framework of Mac OS X.
You could do something like this:
NSString *str = "drwxr-xr-x 9 0 ... ";
NSScanner *scanner = [NSScanner scannerWithString:str];
In order to obtain each token in string form, use NSScanner's scanUpToCharactersFromSet:intoString: member function.
NSString *token = [NSString string];
NSCharacterSet *div = [NSCharacterSet whitespaceCharacterSet];
[scanner scanUpToCharactersFromSet:div intoString:token];
// token now contains #"drwxr-xr-x"
Subsequent calls to the above would return 9, 0, and so on.
Note: the code above has not been tested.

Answer 4

[myStringValue componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceCharacterSet]];
may be useful as well.

Answer 5

Use a regex: RegexKitLite.
This is a "complete example" of a way to use a regex to do what you want with a lot of explanation, so it's a bit of a long answer. The regex used is just one way to do this, and is "fairly permissive" in what it accepts. The example shows:
How to match more than "one line / directory" at once.
A possible way to handle different date formats (Jan 10 05:30 and Apr 30 2009)
How to create an "array of arrays" of matches.
Iterate over the matched array and create a NSDictionary based on the parsed results.
Create a "comma separated values" version of the results.
Note: The example splits up some of its long strings across multiple lines. A string literal in the form of #"string1 " #"string2" will be "automagically" concatenated by the compiler to form a string that is equivalent to #"string 1 string2". I note this only because this might look a bit unusual if you're not used to it.
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import "RegexKitLite.h"
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
NSString *stringToMatch =
#"drwxr-xr-x 9 0 0 4096 Jan 10 05:30 California\n"
#"-rw-r--r-- 1 johne staff 1335 Apr 30 2009 tags.m"; // A random entry from my machine with an "older" date.
NSString *regex =
#"(?m)^" // (?m) means: to "have ^ and $ match new line boundaries". ^ means: "Match the start of a line".
// Below,
// (...) means: "Capture for extraction the matched characters". Captures start at 1, capture 0 matches "everything the regex matched".
// [^\\p{Z}]+ says: "Match one or more characters that are NOT 'Separator' characters (as defined by Unicode, essentially white-space)".
// In essence, '[^\\p{Z}]+' matches "One or more non-white space characters."
// \\s+ says: Match one or more white space characters.
// ([^\\p{Z}]+)\\s+ means: Match, and capture, the non-white space characters, then "gobble up" the white-space characters after the match.
#"([^\\p{Z}]+)\\s+" // Capture 1 - Permission
#"([^\\p{Z}]+)\\s+" // Capture 2 - Links (per `man ls`)
#"([^\\p{Z}]+)\\s+" // Capture 3 - User
#"([^\\p{Z}]+)\\s+" // Capture 4 - Group
#"([^\\p{Z}]+)\\s+" // Capture 5 - Size
#"(\\w{1,3}\\s+\\d+\\s+(?:\\d+:\\d+|\\d+))\\s+" // Capture 6 - The "date" part.
// \\w{1,3} means: One to three "word-like" characters (ie, Jan, Sep, etc).
// \\d+ means: Match one or more "digit-like" characters.
// (?:...) means: Group the following, but don't capture the results.
// (?:.A.|.B.) (the '|') means: Match either A, or match B.
// (?:\\d+:\\d+|\\d+) means: Match either '05:30' or '2009'.
#"(.*)$"; // Capture 7 - Name. .* means: "Match zero or more of any character (except newlines). $ means: Match the end of the line.
// Use RegexKitLites -arrayOfCaptureComponentsMatchedByRegex to create an
// "array of arrays" composed of:
// an array of every match of the regex in stringToMatch, and for each match,
// an array of all the captures specified in the regex.
NSArray *allMatchesArray = [stringToMatch arrayOfCaptureComponentsMatchedByRegex:regex];
NSLog(#"allMatchesArray: %#", allMatchesArray);
// Here, we iterate over the "array of array" and create a NSDictionary
// from the results.
for(NSArray *lineArray in allMatchesArray) {
NSDictionary *parsedDictionary =
[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
[lineArray objectAtIndex:1], #"permission",
[lineArray objectAtIndex:2], #"links",
[lineArray objectAtIndex:3], #"user",
[lineArray objectAtIndex:4], #"group",
[lineArray objectAtIndex:5], #"size",
[lineArray objectAtIndex:6], #"date",
[lineArray objectAtIndex:7], #"name",
NULL];
NSLog(#"parsedDictionary: %#", parsedDictionary);
}
// Here, we use RegexKitLites -stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfRegex method to
// create a new string. We use it to essentially transform the original string
// in to a "comma separated values" version of the string.
// In the withString: argument, '$NUMBER' means: "The characters that were matched
// by capture group NUMBER."
NSString *commaSeparatedString = [stringToMatch stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfRegex:regex withString:#"$1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$7"];
NSLog(#"commaSeparatedString:\n%#", commaSeparatedString);
[pool release];
pool = NULL;
return(0);
}
Compile and run with:
shell% gcc -Wall -Wmost -arch i386 -g -o regexExample regexExample.m RegexKitLite.m -framework Foundation -licucore
shell% ./regexExample
2010-01-14 00:10:38.868 regexExample[49409:903] allMatchesArray: (
(
"drwxr-xr-x 9 0 0 4096 Jan 10 05:30 California",
"drwxr-xr-x",
9,
0,
0,
4096,
"Jan 10 05:30",
California
),
(
"-rw-r--r-- 1 johne staff 1335 Apr 30 2009 tags.m",
"-rw-r--r--",
1,
johne,
staff,
1335,
"Apr 30 2009",
"tags.m"
)
)
2010-01-14 00:10:38.872 regexExample[49409:903] parsedDictionary: {
date = "Jan 10 05:30";
group = 0;
links = 9;
name = California;
permission = "drwxr-xr-x";
size = 4096;
user = 0;
}
2010-01-14 00:10:38.873 regexExample[49409:903] parsedDictionary: {
date = "Apr 30 2009";
group = staff;
links = 1;
name = "tags.m";
permission = "-rw-r--r--";
size = 1335;
user = johne;
}
2010-01-14 00:10:38.873 regexExample[49409:903] commaSeparatedString:
drwxr-xr-x,9,0,0,4096,Jan 10 05:30,California
-rw-r--r--,1,johne,staff,1335,Apr 30 2009,tags.m