Question

I have an RGB hex code like #ffffff as NSString and want to convert that into an UIColor. Is there a simple way to do that?

Answer 1

In some code of mine, I use 2 different functions:

void SKScanHexColor(NSString * hexString, float * red, float * green, float * blue, float * alpha) {
  NSString *cleanString = [hexString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"#" withString:@""];
  if([cleanString length] == 3) {
      cleanString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%@%@%@%@%@", 
                     [cleanString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(0, 1)],[cleanString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(0, 1)],
                     [cleanString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(1, 1)],[cleanString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(1, 1)],
                     [cleanString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(2, 1)],[cleanString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(2, 1)]];
  }
  if([cleanString length] == 6) {
      cleanString = [cleanString stringByAppendingString:@"ff"];
  }

  unsigned int baseValue;
  [[NSScanner scannerWithString:cleanString] scanHexInt:&baseValue];

  if (red) { *red = ((baseValue >> 24) & 0xFF)/255.0f; }
  if (green) { *green = ((baseValue >> 16) & 0xFF)/255.0f; }
  if (blue) { *blue = ((baseValue >> 8) & 0xFF)/255.0f; }
  if (alpha) { *alpha = ((baseValue >> 0) & 0xFF)/255.0f; }
}

And then I use it like this:

UIColor * SKColorFromHexString(NSString * hexString) {
  float red, green, blue, alpha;
  SKScanHexColor(hexString, &red, &green, &blue, &alpha);

  return [UIColor colorWithRed:red green:green blue:blue alpha:alpha];
}

If you prefer to use this as a UIColor category, then it’s just a matter of altering a few lines:

+ (UIColor *) colorFromHexString:(NSString *)hexString {
  NSString *cleanString = [hexString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"#" withString:@""];
  if([cleanString length] == 3) {
      cleanString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%@%@%@%@%@", 
                     [cleanString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(0, 1)],[cleanString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(0, 1)],
                     [cleanString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(1, 1)],[cleanString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(1, 1)],
                     [cleanString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(2, 1)],[cleanString substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(2, 1)]];
  }
  if([cleanString length] == 6) {
      cleanString = [cleanString stringByAppendingString:@"ff"];
  }

  unsigned int baseValue;
  [[NSScanner scannerWithString:cleanString] scanHexInt:&baseValue];

  float red = ((baseValue >> 24) & 0xFF)/255.0f;
  float green = ((baseValue >> 16) & 0xFF)/255.0f;
  float blue = ((baseValue >> 8) & 0xFF)/255.0f;
  float alpha = ((baseValue >> 0) & 0xFF)/255.0f;

  return [UIColor colorWithRed:red green:green blue:blue alpha:alpha];
}

This will handle strings like “#abc”, “#abcdef31”, etc.