Shortcuts in Objective-C to concatenate NSStrings

Question

Are there any shortcuts to (stringByAppendingString:) string concatenation in Objective-C, or shortcuts for working with NSString in general?

Answer 1

Shortcut by creating AppendString (AS) macro ...

#define AS(A,B)    [(A) stringByAppendingString:(B)]

NSString *myString = @"This";

NSString *test = AS(myString,@" is just a test");

Note:

If using a macro, of course just do it with variadic arguments, see EthanB's answer.

Answer 2

I tried this code. it's worked for me.

NSMutableString * myString=[[NSMutableString alloc]init];
myString=[myString stringByAppendingString:@"first value"];
myString=[myString stringByAppendingString:@"second string"];

Answer 3

Well, as colon is kind of special symbol, but is part of method signature, it is possible to exted the NSString with category to add this non-idiomatic style of string concatenation:

[@"This " : @"feels " : @"almost like " : @"concatenation with operators"];

You can define as many colon separated arguments as you find useful... ;-)

For a good measure, I've also added concat: with variable arguments that takes nil terminated list of strings.

//  NSString+Concatenation.h

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface NSString (Concatenation)

- (NSString *):(NSString *)a;
- (NSString *):(NSString *)a :(NSString *)b;
- (NSString *):(NSString *)a :(NSString *)b :(NSString *)c;
- (NSString *):(NSString *)a :(NSString *)b :(NSString *)c :(NSString *)d;

- (NSString *)concat:(NSString *)strings, ...;

@end

//  NSString+Concatenation.m

#import "NSString+Concatenation.h"

@implementation NSString (Concatenation)

- (NSString *):(NSString *)a { return [self stringByAppendingString:a];}
- (NSString *):(NSString *)a :(NSString *)b { return [[self:a]:b];}
- (NSString *):(NSString *)a :(NSString *)b :(NSString *)c
    { return [[[self:a]:b]:c]; }
- (NSString *):(NSString *)a :(NSString *)b :(NSString *)c :(NSString *)d
    { return [[[[self:a]:b]:c]:d];}

- (NSString *)concat:(NSString *)strings, ...
{
    va_list args;
    va_start(args, strings);

    NSString *s;    
    NSString *con = [self stringByAppendingString:strings];

    while((s = va_arg(args, NSString *))) 
        con = [con stringByAppendingString:s];

    va_end(args);
    return con;
}
@end

//  NSString+ConcatenationTest.h

#import <SenTestingKit/SenTestingKit.h>
#import "NSString+Concatenation.h"

@interface NSString_ConcatenationTest : SenTestCase

@end

//  NSString+ConcatenationTest.m

#import "NSString+ConcatenationTest.h"

@implementation NSString_ConcatenationTest

- (void)testSimpleConcatenation 
{
    STAssertEqualObjects([@"a":@"b"], @"ab", nil);
    STAssertEqualObjects([@"a":@"b":@"c"], @"abc", nil);
    STAssertEqualObjects([@"a":@"b":@"c":@"d"], @"abcd", nil);
    STAssertEqualObjects([@"a":@"b":@"c":@"d":@"e"], @"abcde", nil);
    STAssertEqualObjects([@"this " : @"is " : @"string " : @"concatenation"],
     @"this is string concatenation", nil);
}

- (void)testVarArgConcatenation 
{
    NSString *concatenation = [@"a" concat:@"b", nil];
    STAssertEqualObjects(concatenation, @"ab", nil);

    concatenation = [concatenation concat:@"c", @"d", concatenation, nil];
    STAssertEqualObjects(concatenation, @"abcdab", nil);
}

Answer 4

This is for better logging, and logging only - based on dicius excellent multiple argument method. I define a Logger class, and call it like so:

[Logger log: @"foobar ", @" asdads ", theString, nil];

Almost good, except having to end the var args with "nil" but I suppose there's no way around that in Objective-C.

Logger.h

@interface Logger : NSObject {
}
+ (void) log: (id) first, ...;
@end

Logger.m

@implementation Logger

+ (void) log: (id) first, ...
{
    // TODO: make efficient; handle arguments other than strings
    // thanks to @diciu http://stackoverflow.com/questions/510269/how-do-i-concatenate-strings-in-objective-c
    NSString * result = @"";
    id eachArg;
    va_list alist;
    if(first)
    {
        result = [result stringByAppendingString:first];
        va_start(alist, first);
        while (eachArg = va_arg(alist, id)) 
        {
            result = [result stringByAppendingString:eachArg];
        }
        va_end(alist);
    }
    NSLog(@"%@", result);
}

@end 

In order to only concat strings, I'd define a Category on NSString and add a static (+) concatenate method to it that looks exactly like the log method above except it returns the string. It's on NSString because it's a string method, and it's static because you want to create a new string from 1-N strings, not call it on any one of the strings that are part of the append.

Answer 5

NSNumber *lat = [NSNumber numberWithDouble:destinationMapView.camera.target.latitude];
NSNumber *lon = [NSNumber numberWithDouble:destinationMapView.camera.target.longitude];
NSString *DesconCatenated = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@|%@",lat,lon];

Answer 6

If you have 2 NSString literals, you can also just do this:

NSString *joinedFromLiterals = @"ONE " @"MILLION " @"YEARS " @"DUNGEON!!!";

That's also useful for joining #defines:

#define STRINGA @"Also, I don't know "
#define STRINGB @"where food comes from."
#define JOINED STRINGA STRINGB

Enjoy.