Why NSInteger instead of NSUInteger in "numberOfSectionInTableView:"? - ios

The UITableView data source method numberOfSectionsInTableView: has a return type of NSInteger. However, a UITableView cannot have a negative amount of rows; it has 0 or greater rows, so why is the return type of NSInteger? Doesn't that allow for crashes relating to a negative integer being returned?

You can't do the check (if var < 0) return; with an unsigned integer. That is the standard reason for preferring one. Really the only reason to use an unsigned integer is if you need the extra room for larger digits, and you can guarantee the input will never try to be less than zero.

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invalid operands when multiplying NSInteger by any number

i am trying to print an integer property multiplied by another number as follows:
NSLog(#"ReceivedData: %i", (self.receivedData*10));
but Xcode highlights that line in red and says:invalid operands
I tried the following
NSInteger *newVal = #([self receivedData] * 10);
NSLog(#"ReceivedData: %i", (int) self.receivedData);
but I receive invalid operands error
receivedData is NSInteger*
how to solve it
You are not multiplying an NSInteger with a number, you are multiplying a pointer to an NSInteger with a number, which is not allowed, because multiplying a pointer by a number is nonsense.
99.99% chance that receivedData shouldn't be an NSInteger* but an NSInteger. NSInteger is not an object.
The line
NSInteger *newVal = #([self receivedData] * 10);
shows that you should go back to basics and actually learn the programming language that you are using.

objective c float increment wrong value

I have a query regarding floating value increment in loop.
I have following code
float add = 1.02f;
float counter = 0.0f;
for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++) {
counter += add;
NSLog(#"%f",counter);
}
While executing this loop I am getting following result
1.020000
2.040000
3.060000
4.080000
5.100000
6.120000
7.140000
8.160000
9.180000
10.200001
11.220001
12.240002
13.260002
14.280003
15.300003
16.320004
17.340004
18.360004
19.380005
20.400005
Here is expected result
1.020000
2.040000
3.060000
4.080000
5.100000
6.120000
7.140000
8.160000
9.180000
10.200000
11.220000
12.240000
13.260000
14.280000
15.300000
16.320000
17.340000
18.360000
19.380000
20.400000
Why i am getting some floating point in loop without adding it.
I need to loop more then 1000 times. And I want the value in float variable.
Thanks in advance.
This happens because float cannot represent the values that you have with exact precision. There are two simple ways of fixing this:
Represent the number as 100 times the target value, and use integers - 1.02 becomes 102, 2.04 becomes 204, and so on.
Use NSDecimalNumber to represent your numbers - Unlike float, NSDecimalNumber can represent all your values with full precision.
Here is how to implement the first approach:
int add = 102;
int counter = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++) {
counter += add;
NSLog(#"%d.%d", counter/100, counter%100);
}
Here is how to implement the second approach:
NSDecimalNumber add = [NSDecimalNumber decimalNumberWithString:#"1.02"];
NSDecimalNumber counter = [NSDecimalNumber zero];
for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++) {
counter = [counter decimalNumberByAdding:add];
NSLog(#"%#", counter);
}
Why i am getting some floating point in loop without adding it.
Because float is a binary type that doesn't represent decimal values exactly. Rather than trying to explain completely and correctly, let me point you to the well-known paper What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating Point Arithmetic.
Floating point number representations in computers are approximations, they are not exact. Sometimes you end up trying to display a number that can't be exactly represented in the computer's floating point number implementation, so it gives you an approximation. Also you get small arithmetic errors from repeated multiplications, additions, etc. of floating point numbers. The best you can do is to use doubles, which have more precision than floats do. In special circumstances, you could also represent your data in a different format and just change how you display it to the user to fit what they expect. For example, when working with dollars and cents, you could just store a total as a number of cents (which would be only an integer) and then format it to be shown as dollars and cents correctly for the user. There's no floating point rounding issues happening then.
Floating point numbers use four bytes = 32 bits.
1 bit for sign
8 bits for exponent
23 bits for mantissa
Precision: The number of decimal digits precision is calculated via number_of_mantissa_bits * Log10(2). Thus ~7.2 and ~15.9 for single and double precision respectively.
That's why you start to see rounding errors on the 7th digit
Source link.

arc4random_uniform output issue

in iOS Objetive-C I am trying to get the number typed by the user in a text field to set the upper bounder of a random number generation function in C.
- (IBAction)pushTheButton2:(id)sender {
u_int32_t upperBound = (u_int32_t) textField3.text;
textField4.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%d", arc4random_uniform(upperBound)];
}
The output is a giant number that makes no sense. To test if function works, if I hardcode the actual upper bound in the arc4random_uniform function, such as arc4random_uniform(5), then it works!
I figured this could be some kind of literal conversion, so I tried to make this work with u_int32_t but still not outputting the right range.
Can someone help? Thanks
You are currently taking the memory reference pointer of the text and using that as the upper bound.
Try doing something like this instead...
NSInteger upperBound = [textfield.text intValue];
This will convert the string into an int that you can then use in the arc random function.
To parse string to integer you should do:
NSInteger upperBound = [textfield.text integerValue];

Average of textfields depending on how many textfield are "used"

Little explication: I have an app with 5 textfields, i already got the code to make the avaerage of them. Using floates and giving a variable to each textfield.so, the adding of the value of all the textfield /5 (divided per 5)
My problem is that when a textfield is leaved emptty, its not goona be /5, if user fill in only 4 cells it will be/4 and so on.
Question: how to divide the adding of cells depending in how many cells have content?
I was tryng with textfield.text.length > 0 in an if. But i dont get it
Thanks, hope i was clear.
You could check each textfield and see if the text is NULL or blank (#"")
Use an int to keep track of the number of textfields that have a value.
For example:
int counter = 0;
float total = 0.0;
if([textfield1.text length] > 0)
{
counter++;
float thisValue = [textfield1.text floatValue];
total = total + thisValue;
}
repeat this for all 5 textfields and then divide your total by the counter variable.
You could include the if statement in a loop if you are going to vary the number of text fields or to reduce the amount of coding you do.
EDIT I have changed my answer based on the good suggestions of other to use text.length
try to count the number of used textfields by increasing a number every time you read out a textfield that has valid text in it and divide the result by that number. (logically the "number" should be initialized as 0)

How to get the value of an NSDecimalNumber from NSDecimal?

I have an array of objects, each object has an NSDecimalNumber, call it "size"
For each object in the array, I will subtract a recommended size, called rSize.
I then want to go into the resultant NSDecimalNumber and get the value of the delta, don't really care if it's positive or negative result.
I think I'm going to use the decimalNumber method which will return a NSDecimal struct, so the question is: which property within the struct will give me the value of the delta?
To rephrase: A NSDecimal represents an NSDecimalNumber, but which property of the NSDecimal struct holds the value?
Many thanks
Rob
Your "delta" appears to be the absolute value of the difference between "rSize" and the item. In that case, you can perform the subtraction (item – rSize), and multiply it by -1 if it is negative entirely within NSDecimalNumber:
NSDecimalNumber *negativeOne = [NSDecimalNumber decimalNumberWithMantissa:1
exponent:0
isNegative:YES];
NSDecimalNumber *delta = [item decimalNumberBySubtracting:rSize];
if ([delta compare:[NSDecimalNumber zero]] == NSOrderedAscending) {
delta = [delta decimalNumberByMultiplyingBy:negativeOne];
}
Then use the -compare: selector on the resulting delta objects to sort your array of objects.

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