Parsing and processing Text Strings in iOS - ios

Question

Wanted to find the best programming approach in iOS to manipulate and process text strings. Thanks!
Would like to take a file with strings to manipulate the characters similar to the following:
NQXB26JT1RKLP9VHarren Daggett B0BMAF00SSQ ME03B98TBAA8D
NBQB25KT1RKLP05Billison Whiner X0AMAF00UWE 8E21B98TBAF8W
...
...
...
Each string would process in series then loop to the next string, etc.
Strip out the name and the following strings:
Take the following 3 string fragments and convert to another number base. Have the code to process the new result but unsure of how to send these short strings to be processed in series.
QXB26
B0BM
BAA8
Then output the results to a file. The xxx represents the converted numbers.
xxxxxxxxx Harren Daggett xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxx Billison Whiner xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx
...
...
...
The end result would be pulling parts of strings out of the first file and create a new file with the desired result.

Answer 1

There are several ways to accomplish what you are after, but if you want something simple and reasonably easy to debug, you could simply split up each record by the fixed position of each of the fields you have identified (the numbers, the name), then use a simple regular expression replace to condense the name and put it all back together.
For purposes like this I prefer a simple (and even a bit pedestrian) solution that is easy to follow and debug, so this example is not optimised:
NSFileManager *fm = [NSFileManager defaultManager];
NSArray *URLs = [fm URLsForDirectory: NSDocumentDirectory
inDomains: NSUserDomainMask];
NSURL *workingdirURL = URLs.lastObject;
NSURL *inputFileURL = [workingdirURL URLByAppendingPathComponent:#"input.txt" isDirectory:NO];
NSURL *outputFileURL = [workingdirURL URLByAppendingPathComponent:#"output.txt" isDirectory:NO];
// For the purpose of this example, just read it all in one chunk
NSError *error;
NSString *stringFromFileAtURL = [[NSString alloc]
initWithContentsOfURL:inputFileURL
encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding
error:&error];
if ( !stringFromFileAtURL) {
// Error, do something more intelligent that just returning
return;
}
NSArray *records = [stringFromFileAtURL componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet: [NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet]];
NSMutableArray *newRecords = [NSMutableArray array];
for (NSString *record in records) {
NSString *firstNumberString = [record substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(1, 5)];
NSString *nameString = [record substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(15, 27)];
NSString *secondNumberString = [record substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(43, 4)];
NSString *thirdNumberString = [record substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(65, 4)];
NSString *condensedNameString = [nameString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:#" +"
withString:#" "
options:NSRegularExpressionSearch
range:NSMakeRange(0, nameString.length)];
NSString *newRecord = [NSString stringWithFormat: #"%# %# %# %#",
convertNumberString(firstNumberString),
condensedNameString,
convertNumberString(secondNumberString),
convertNumberString(thirdNumberString) ];
[newRecords addObject: newRecord];
}
NSString *outputString = [newRecords componentsJoinedByString:#"\n"];
[outputString writeToURL: outputFileURL
atomically: YES
encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding
error: &error];
In this example convertNumberString is a plain C function that converts your number strings. It could of course also be a method, depending on the architecture or your preferences.