Question

I am creating a names generator app for iPhone and this is what I am trying to do.

• Allow the user to save the current generated name by clicking a save button.

In order to do this, here is what is happening:

• The current babyname is displayed in a UILabel.
• The user presses ‘save’ and then the label.text value is appended to a NSMutableArray (I don’t think this is working in my code correctly).
• The NSMutableArray is then saved in NSUserDefaults.
• The contents will then be loaded in another view to populate UITableView cells.

My specific question is, am I handling this saving/persistent storage process correctly? Here is the snippet in question:

- (IBAction)saveName:(id)sender {
// save current baby name to array
NSMutableArray *babyNameArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];

[babyNameArray addObject:babyname.text];

// save list of babynames to nsuserdefaults

[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] setObject:babyNameArray forKey:@"My Key"];


// for testing log names listed in nsuserdefaults
NSLog(@"%@", [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] dictionaryRepresentation]);

}

Here is a link to the pastebin of the whole file contents (with comments): http://pastebin.com/hQRM9Azh

Answer 1

Every time you add, you’re starting again with an empty array ([[NSMutableArray alloc] init]) – instead of starting with the existing items.

Here’s some code which adds to the existing entries instead:

NSUserDefaults *defaults = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
NSMutableArray *babyNameArray = [[defaults stringArrayForKey:@"My Key"] mutableCopy];
if (!babyNameArray) babyNameArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
[babyNameArray addObject:babyname.text];
[defaults setObject:babyNameArray forKey:@"My Key"];
[defaults synchronize];