Objective C: Get Substring between Double Quotes

Question

What would be the best way to get every substring between double quotes and make it into an array?

For example, if the string (NSString) is:

@"abcd \"efgh\" ijklm \"no\" p \"qrst\" uvwx \"y\" z"

I want the result to be:

{@"efgh", @"no", @"qrst", @"y"}

as an NSArray.

I guess the same question is asked plenty of time in different manner..!! Try to search first. — Yama, May 21 '12 at 04:34
what is the reason behind having values within @"", you need string values? — rishi, May 21 '12 at 04:34
I don't know if componentsSeparateByString: accepts escaped char's, but it's worth a shot. — CodaFi, May 21 '12 at 04:37
Try below post may be help full for your string split's in objective c http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6825834/objective-c-how-to-extract-part-of-a-string-e-g-start-with Welcome! — Dinesh, May 21 '12 at 04:37

score 6 · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-21T05:01:26.040

This should get you started:

NSString *str = @"abcd \"efgh\" ijklm \"no\" p \"qrst\" uvwx \"y\" z";
NSMutableArray *target = [NSMutableArray array];
NSScanner *scanner = [NSScanner scannerWithString:str];
NSString *tmp;

while ([scanner isAtEnd] == NO)
{
    [scanner scanUpToString:@"\"" intoString:NULL];
    [scanner scanString:@"\"" intoString:NULL];
    [scanner scanUpToString:@"\"" intoString:&tmp];
    if ([scanner isAtEnd] == NO)
        [target addObject:tmp];
    [scanner scanString:@"\"" intoString:NULL];
}

for (NSString *item in target)
{
    NSLog(@"%@", item);
}

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered May 21 '12 at 04:41

One way would be to use componentsSeparatedByString: to split them based on ". This should give you an array of words the count of which should be odd. Filter all the even numbered words into an array. This should be your desired array.

Alternatively look at NSPredicate.

Objective C: Get Substring between Double Quotes

2 Answers2