How to convert switch state into integer in ios - ios

Question

I am using five switches for handling different types of notifications. To remember the state of the switch, I am thinking of converting state of five switches into an integer. For example, if my switches status is as follow, 01010 then the integer should be 10. Please help me how to achieve this.

Answer 1

At first extract each switch value and store it in a single string
Now convert the string to decimal /integer value like this:-
NSString * binarystring = #"01010";
long decimalValue = strtol([binarystring UTF8String], NULL, 2);
NSLog(#"%ld", decimalValue );
Edit
Get all switch control value in single string:-
NSString *binarystring = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:#"%i%i%i%i%i",self.switch1.isOn,self.switch2.isOn,self.switch3.isOn,self.switch4.isOn,self.switch5.isOn];

Answer 2

(Why bother encoding your 5 switch values into a single integer? Storing 5 Booleans is not hard. That said the question is how to do it...)
Important aside: BOOL values are not 0 and 1
Objective-C is a superset of C, and in the original C there was no Boolean type - instead it just used an integer type with the interpretation that 0 was false and anything else was true.
Objective-C defines BOOL as a signed char, that is an 8-bit signed integer type (as characters are just an integer type in C). So in Objective-C 0 is false, and -128..-1, 1..127 are all true. NO is defined as 0 and YES as 1, but various operations may result in other values.
To get a 0 or 1 from a BOOL b you can use the conditional operator:
b ? 1 : 0
However the built in logical operators by definition will always return 0 or 1 and never any of the other possible values. The ! operator is logical not, and two not's get you back to where you started so:
!!b
will also give you a 0 or 1.
In any code that takes a BOOL and tries to use it as a 0 or 1 you should really use one of the above (or an equivalent).
One way to solve it: using strings
Your question has been interpreted as using a string as an intermediary during the encoding. First assume the class has your five buttons stored in an instance variable as a simple array (it will allow us to loop):
const int kSWITCH_COUNT = 5; // let's not hard code it everywhere
#implemention MyClass
{
Switch *switches[kSWITCH_COUNT];
}
then the string method goes something like:
- (void) stringMethod
{
NSMutableString *binarystring = NSMutableString.new;
// build up the string one value at a time, note the !! so we only get 0 or 1 values
for (int ix = 0; ix < kSWITCH_COUNT; ix++)
[binarystring appendFormat:#"%d", !!switches[ix].isOn];
long decimalValue = strtol([binarystring UTF8String], NULL, 2);
NSLog(#"Encoded: 0x%lx", decimalValue);
}
This method works, but it is rather a circuitous way of getting to the result - you have 5 integer (Boolean) values and you want to combine them into an integer, why involve strings?
A better way to solve it: using integers
(Objective-)C provides bitwise operators to do shifts, or, and, etc. operations which treat integer types as an ordered collection of bits - which is what they are on a computer.
The << operator shifts left, e.g. 0x1 << 1 produces 0x2, i.e. << 1 is equivalent to multiplication by 2. The | operator is bitwise or, e.g. 0x1 << 1 | 1produces0x3`. The answer to your question now follows easily:
- (void) shiftMethod
{
unsigned int encoded = 0;
for (int ix = 0; ix < kSWITCH_COUNT; ix++)
encoded = (encoded << 1) | !!switches[ix].isOn;
NSLog(#"Encoded: 0x%x", encoded);
}
If you don't like shifts and ors you can use multiplication and addition:
encoded = encoded * 2 + !!switches[ix].isOn;
The above solves the problem directly, no converting to/from intermediate strings. It happens to be a lot faster as well, but in the overall scheme of an application neither approach is probably going to take a significant proportion of the execution time and you shouldn't select based on that.
A Third Way
If you are going to wish to set/get the individual bits of an integer a lot you can use struct types with bit-field widths. These let you set/get the bits of an integer directly - no shifting etc. required - and you may find them useful, but they are rather "low level". Any good book on C will show you how to use these.
HTH