How can I find a dynamic number in a long NSString?

Question

I have a very big NSString, which holds around 1500 characters in it. In this string I need to extract a phone number, which may change frequently, as it is a dynamic data. The phone number will be in the format of 251-221-2000, how can I extract this?

Check [NSScanner](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSScanner_Class/Reference/Reference.html%23//apple_ref/occ/cl/NSScanner) — iDev, Jan 07 '13 at 05:29

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:48

5

Check out this previous question on regular expressions and NSString.

Search through NSString using Regular Expression

In your case an appropriate regular expression would be @"\\d{3}-\\d{3}-\\d{4}".

edited May 23 '17 at 11:48

Community

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answered Jan 07 '13 at 05:29

s.bandara

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how to convert the result as string as i am getting output as: {2134, 12}{ \d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4} 0x1} – Pradeep Kumar Jan 07 '13 at 05:55
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13707187/regex-to-extract-all-the-substrings-between-two-charachters-or-tags – s.bandara Jan 07 '13 at 06:00

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 07 '13 at 05:27

0

This sounds like a perfect candidate for a regular expression. You can use the NSRegularExpression class to achieve this. You can test your regular expression at http://www.regextester.com

answered Jan 07 '13 at 05:27

borrrden

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score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 07 '13 at 05:31

0

NSString *yourString = @"Your 1500 characters string ";
NSError *error = NULL;
NSRegularExpression *regex = [NSRegularExpression         
regularExpressionWithPattern:@"\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4}"
options:NSRegularExpressionCaseInsensitive
error:&error];
[regex enumerateMatchesInString:yourString options:0 range:NSMakeRange(0, [yourString length]) usingBlock:^(NSTextCheckingResult *match, NSMatchingFlags flags, BOOL *stop){
// your code to handle matches here
}];

Let me know it is working or not.

edited Jan 07 '13 at 05:31

MCKapur

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answered Jan 07 '13 at 05:31

NiravPatel

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You need to escape the backslashes in the regexp – rmaddy Jan 07 '13 at 06:04

How can I find a dynamic number in a long NSString?

3 Answers3