Question

I have a paragraph (4 sentences) of text in an .plist array that loads into a UITextView.

By default, it presents the text how it is, as one big lump of text in a paragraph. I want to know if it is possible to split this up?

Such as Line 1: sdfafasfsafsa, then line 2: asfdsafs, line 3: adfsfsdfsdfa, etc.

Is there a way I can search for a . and then separate the lines accordingly? I would just edit the plist manually but there are hundreds of entries so it isn’t easy to do.

Answer 1

NSString* tidiedString = [sourceString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"." withString:@"\n"];

Update: OK, so more detail is coming through. You could use a regular expression – but if you’re not familiar, the learning curve is a bit steep. Otherwise, as with other answers, crank through the list. You need to take care of whitespaces, empty lines etc. The following snippet isn’t pretty, but will do the job.

NSString* sourceString = @"Hyperlinks can be great. They can also dilute your focus and tempt you into putting off what you most want to do. Here I chose to place links at the foot of the page to help you to make an active choice as to whether to surf or refocus your attention elsewhere.";

NSArray* arrayOfStrings = [sourceString componentsSeparatedByString:@"."];

NSMutableString* superString = [NSMutableString stringWithString:@""];

int lineCount = 1;
for (NSString* string in arrayOfStrings)
{
    if ([string length] < 1) continue;

    [superString appendFormat:@"Line %d: %@.\n", lineCount++, [string stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet: [NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]]];
}

[superString stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]];

[[self userEntry] setText:superString];