NSString is empty

Question

How do you test if an NSString is empty? or all whitespace or nil? with a single method call?

Answer 1

I use,

+ (BOOL ) stringIsEmpty:(NSString *) aString {

    if ((NSNull *) aString == [NSNull null]) {
        return YES;
    }

    if (aString == nil) {
        return YES;
    } else if ([aString length] == 0) {
        return YES;
    } else {
        aString = [aString stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet: [NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]];
        if ([aString length] == 0) {
            return YES;
        }
    }

    return NO;  
}

+ (BOOL ) stringIsEmpty:(NSString *) aString shouldCleanWhiteSpace:(BOOL)cleanWhileSpace {

    if ((NSNull *) aString == [NSNull null]) {
        return YES;
    }

    if (aString == nil) {
        return YES;
    } else if ([aString length] == 0) {
        return YES;
    } 

    if (cleanWhileSpace) {
        aString = [aString stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet: [NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]];
        if ([aString length] == 0) {
            return YES;
        }
    }

    return NO;  
}