Use NSArray
and NSMutableArray
classes to store objects into
arrays that are fixed and that you can change, respectively.
An object of type NSArray
or
any of its subclasses has the capability to store
n number of other objects. These objects can then
be accessed using their index. For instance, let’s say you have 10
pairs of socks. Now imagine placing them all on a flat surface from
left to right and calling them socks 1, socks 2, socks 3, etc. So the
leftmost sock is now addressed as socks 1, the one next to it is
called socks 2, and so on. Isn’t that easier than saying something
like “the blue socks next to my red socks”? That’s exactly what arrays
do: they make arranging items much easier.
Note
You can place any object of type NSObject or any of its
subclasses into an array of type (or subclasses of) NSArray
.
The primary difference between NSArray
and NSMutableArray
is that a mutable array can be
changed/modified after it has been allocated and initialized, whereas
an immutable array, NSArray
, cannot.
Let’s have a look at an example. Let’s create an instance of
NSString
and two instances of
NSNumber
and place them in an
immutable array:
NSString *stringObject = @"My String"; NSNumber *signedNumber = [NSNumber numberWithInteger:-123]; NSNumber *unsignedNumber = [NSNumber numberWithUnsignedInteger:123]; NSArray *array = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects: stringObject, signedNumber, unsignedNumber, nil]; NSLog(@"array = %@", array);
When you run this program, you get the following text printed to your console:
array = ( "My String", "-123", 123 )
As you can see, we used the initWithObjects:
initializer of the array.
When using this initializer, pass your objects that need to be placed
inside the array, one by one. At the end, terminate the list with a
nil
so that the runtime knows when
you are terminating your list. If you don’t do so, the LLVM Compiler will throw a warning similar to
this:
warning: Semantic Issue: Missing sentinel in method dispatch
We can also use the arrayWithObjects:
class method of NSArray
to create
an autorelease array, like so:
NSArray *array = [NSArray arrayWithObjects: stringObject, signedNumber, unsignedNumber, nil];
You can call the count
method
on your array to get the number of objects in that array. You can go
through your array using a for loop or using an enumerator. Let’s have
a look at the solution with a for loop first:
NSArray *array = [NSArray arrayWithObjects: stringObject, signedNumber, unsignedNumber,nil]; NSUInteger counter = 0; for (counter = 0; counter < [array count]; counter++){ id object = [array objectAtIndex:counter]; NSLog(@"Object = %@", object); }
And here is the output:
Object = My String Object = -123 Object = 123
As you can see, we use the objectAtIndex:
method
to get an object at a specific index. Remember that indexes are
zero-based. In other words, when the counter reaches -1, the loop has
to stop because there can be no negative indexes in an array.
As mentioned before, you can also use fast enumeration to go through objects of an array. Fast enumeration is a language feature in Objective-C that allows you to enumerate objects in an array or dictionary (or any other object that supports fast enumeration) without having to use any counter or for loop. The format is as follows:
for (Type variableName in array/dictionary/etc){ ... }
Suppose we want to code the previous example without the overhead of a counter variable. Here is how we can do it using fast enumeration:
for (id object in array){ NSLog(@"Object = %@", object); }
The results are practically identical to the results we got from the previous version of this code that used a counter variable.
Mutable arrays are very interesting. As you probably have already guessed, immutable arrays cannot be modified once allocated and initialized. Mutable arrays, however, can be modified after their allocation and initialization. Let’s have a look at an example:
NSString *stringObject = @"My String"; NSNumber *signedNumber = [NSNumber numberWithInteger:-123]; NSNumber *unsignedNumber = [NSNumber numberWithUnsignedInteger:123]; NSArray *anotherArray = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects: @"String 1", @"String 2", @"String 3", nil]; NSMutableArray *array = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithObjects: stringObject, signedNumber, nil]; [array addObject:unsignedNumber]; [array removeObject:signedNumber]; [array addObjectsFromArray:anotherArray]; for (id object in array){ NSLog(@"Object = %@", object); }
Before we go into analyzing the code, let’s have a look at its output:
Object = My String Object = 123 Object = String 1 Object = String 2 Object = String 3
You might be asking, “what just happened?”. Well, let’s have a
look what methods of the NSMutableArray
class we actually
used:
addObject:
This method allows us to add an object to the end of a mutable array.
removeObject:
Using this method, we can remove a specific object from the array. Remember that we pass an object to this method, not an index of the object. To remove an object using an index into the array, we must use the
removeObjectAtIndex:
method.addObjectsFromArray:
With this method, we can add objects from one array (either mutable or immutable) into our mutable array.
Warning
Please bear in mind that during fast enumeration of a mutable array, you must not add to or remove anything from that array or you will get a runtime error. This is the default behavior of mutable arrays during fast enumeration.
If you are interesting in block objects (and we’ll see good
reasons to be, later in the book!), you can also enumerate
objects in your arrays using the enumerateObjects
UsingBlock:
method. The
block object passed to this method should:
Return no value.
Have three parameters:
First parameter of type
id
, which will be the object being enumerated at each loop of enumeration.Second parameter of type
NSUInteger
, which will tell you the index of the current object being enumerated.Last but not least, a parameter of type
*BOOL
, which you can use to stop the enumeration. This is a pointer to a boolean variable which should beNO
as long as you want the enumeration to proceed. You can change the value of this pointer toYES
in order to stop the enumeration at any time. You would use this if you are looking for an object in an array and you would like to stop the enumeration as soon as you’ve found that object, since there is no point continuing the enumeration if you’ve already found your object.
NSArray *myArray = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects: @"String 1", @"String 2", @"String 3", @"String 4", nil]; [myArray enumerateObjectsUsingBlock: ^(__strong id obj, NSUInteger idx, BOOL *stop) { NSLog(@"Object = %@", obj); }];
If you need to sort an array,
simply use the new block-based sorting methods of NS
Array
or NSMutableArray
. Just remember that the
sorting methods of NSArray
return a
new instance of NSArray
and leave
the original array intact, since NSArray
cannot be modified (sorting can
modify an array) after it has been allocated and initialized. This is
in comparison to the sorting methods of NSMutableArray
, where the original array
will be the target of sorting and the sorting methods will
not return a new array. Let’s look at sorting a
mutable array:
NSMutableArray *myArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithObjects: @"String 2", @"String 4", @"String 1", @"String 3", nil]; [myArray sortUsingComparator: ^NSComparisonResult(__strong id obj1, __strong id obj2) { NSString *string1 = (NSString *)obj1; NSString *string2 = (NSString *)obj2; return [string1 compare:string2]; }]; NSLog(@"myArray = %@", myArray);
The results will then be printed to the console, as follows:
myArray = ( "String 1", "String 2", "String 3", "String 4" )
So, what happened? We simply called the sortUsingComparator:
method of our array. This method takes in a block object (marked by the initial ^
character) that has
to return a value of type NSComparisonResult
. This value can be any of
the following:
NSOrderedSame
The two values being compared are equal.
NSOrderedAscending
The value on the left of the comparison is smaller than the value on the right. Think of it as this: transition from value 1 (left) to value 2 (right) is ascending, meaning that value 1 is smaller.
NSOrderedDescending
The value on the right is smaller than the value on the left. In other words, the transition from value 1 (left) to value 2 (right) is descending, meaning that value 1 is bigger than value 2.
So if we get String 3
as value 1
(left) and String 1
as value 2
(right), the sort function compares the two S
characters and finds them the same, then the two
t characters, and so on. Finally when the sort
function reaches the 3 and the 1, it finds that 1 is lower than 3 in
the UTF8String character set, and therefore that the second element is
lower than the first.
The block object submitted to the sortUsingComparator:
method takes two
parameters:
- First Object of type
id
This is the first object in the comparison in each iteration.
- Second Object of type
id
This is the second object in the comparison in each iteration.
So when sorting the array, simply use a block-based approach. It’s the way Apple is pushing developers to go forward with their implementations, so it’s good to know about block objects.
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