Convert NSMutableAttributedString to NSString

Question

Can we not convert NSMutableAttributedString to NSString?

I have two NSMutableAttributedStrings and I am appending the 2nd string onto 1st as below:

[string1 appendAttributedString:string2];

Since I have to display string1 on a label I do:

self.label1.text = (NSString *)string1;

I am getting "unrecognized selector sent to instance" error.

Am I doing anything wrong here? Isn't this the correct way to assign a NSMutableAttributedString to text property of a label?

score 86 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 23 '20 at 20:28

86

You can't use a cast to convert an object from one type to another. Use the provided method:

label1.text = [string1 string];

Better yet, use the attributed string:

label1.attributedText = string1

edited Mar 23 '20 at 20:28

Devbot10

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answered Oct 11 '13 at 03:45

rmaddy

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Yeah I just realized the label has attributedText property as well. Thanks for the reply though!! :) – tech_human Oct 11 '13 at 03:49

score 25 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 14 '16 at 16:44

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NSAttributtedString includes a .string property. From there, you can take NSString without attributes.

So:

NSAttributtedString* someString;
NSString* string = someString.string;

edited Apr 14 '16 at 16:44

Mogsdad

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answered Apr 14 '16 at 16:43

Juraj Antas

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You saved me buddy. sorry stackoverflow does not allow me to upvote this more than one. – Nasir Jan 25 '17 at 14:49
I agree. I wish I could upvote more than once. This greatly simplified my code. – Lewis Edward Garrett Oct 16 '21 at 00:03

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 20 '20 at 12:59

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NSAttributtedString have a property string and it is read only property you can not change it.

NSAttributtedString* attributtedString;
NSString* plainString = attributtedString.string;

answered Feb 20 '20 at 12:59

Mohammad Parvez

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score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 25 '16 at 14:00

Apart from @rmaddy's answer, mine case is different here.

Actually I used NSMutableAttributedString in JSON parsing to send details on server.

At parsing time I got exception because NSMutableAttributedString contains information about other attributes too, like color space. Because of that it wont parse.

I tried many other ways but finally got solution to get string using below code:

// "amountString" is NSMutableAttributedString string object

NSMutableAttributedString *mutableString = (NSMutableAttributedString *)amountString;
amountValueString = [mutableString string];
amountValueString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@", amountString];

NSRange fullRange = NSMakeRange(0, amountString.length);
NSAttributedString *attStr = [mutableString attributedSubstringFromRange:fullRange];
NSDictionary *documentAttributes = @{NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute:NSPlainTextDocumentType};

NSData *textData = [attStr dataFromRange:fullRange documentAttributes:documentAttributes error:NULL];
NSString *amountValueString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:textData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

Convert NSMutableAttributedString to NSString

4 Answers4