Question

I have an if statement that compares strings but I want to compare strings that have the same words but different order and have it returned as true.

string 1 a,b,c

string 2 b,c,a

How can I compare them and have the if statement see it as the same string?

Answer 1

Separate the string using componentsSeperatedByString: using whatever string separates your words (comma, space) and put the result in a NSSet. Do it to both strings and compare the sets for equality.

Modified method using mutableArray instead of Set for taking problems with duplicate strings into consideration (as described in comments):

-(BOOL) string: (NSString*) string1 isEqualTo: (NSString*) string2 {
  if (string1.length != string2.length) return NO;
  if ([string1 isEqualToString: string2]) return YES;

  NSMutableArray *array1 = [NSMutableArray arrayWithArray: [string1 componentsSeperatedByString: @","]];
  NSMutableArray *array2 = [NSMutableArray arrayWithArray: [string2 componentsSeperatedByString: @","]];

  [array1 sortUsingSelector: @selector(compare:)];
  [array2 sortUsingSelector: @selector(compare:)];

  return [array1 isEqualToArray: array2];
}