Viewing NSData contents in Xcode

Question

I am running Xcode and I would like to dump out a NSData*. The variable in question is buffer. Is there a way to do this through the UI or the GDB debugger?

Answer 1

Your data instance is empty.

It wouldn't only display the address otherwise. -[NSData description] includes a printout of the contents of the data. The bytes are grouped in fours and printed in hex with a leading 0 placeholder:

char arr[] = {0x1, 0x2, 0xA, 0x4, 0xF};
NSData * dat = [NSData dataWithBytes:arr length:5];
NSLog(@"%@", dat);

2012-07-17 22:24:48.973 PrintDat[61264:403] <01020a04 0f>

Using po dat at the debugger's command line will give you the same results, including the address:

(NSData *) $1 = 0x00007f98da500180 <01020a04 0f>

The contextual menu route that Anshu suggested also uses the description method.