Question

Basically my view controller has 49 different instance variables of class CircleView (called circleView1, circleView2, …, circleView49). The CircleView class is a simple subclass of UIImageView and basically returns a circle picture when initialized.

Here is what I am trying to do:

In my implementation for the view controller, I want to be able to select the instance variable using a string, for example let’s say I generate a random integer i between 1 and 49, lets say it’s 5. I would like to be able to build an NSString using something like [NSString stringWithFormat @"circleView%i",i]; and somehow reach the actual circleView5 instance variable. Is this possible?

P.S. I’m looking for something in the lines of NSClassFromString, but which applies to instance variables or objects.

Answer 1

KVC is your friend. Assuming you have a string with the name of the circleView in it,

NSString *myCircle = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"circleView%i", i];

you access that property on the controller using KVC:

CircleView *theCircle = [self valueForKey:myCircle];

On a side note, you should consider redesigning the object heirarchary; this will be very difficult to maintain, and there are certainly better ways to do it (an array with the CircleView’s accessed by index would be my first choice).