Question

I’ m searching function that will works like preg_match_all (or similar) from for example PHP.

I want give a pattern and my NSData object(with HTML content) then get all results that fits to pattern.

I’ m programming iOS 5. Is there any library or function to do this ?

Answer 1

Take a look at the NSRegularExpression class.

Here’s a snippet of code that uses it:

    NSError *error = nil;
    NSRegularExpression *tagsRegex = [NSRegularExpression 
         regularExpressionWithPattern:@"(<b>|<u>|<i>|<br/?>)" 
                              options:NSRegularExpressionCaseInsensitive
                                error:&error];
    if (!tagsRegex) {
        NSLog(@"Tags regex creation error: %@", [error localizedDescription]);
    }

    if ([tagsRegex numberOfMatchesInString:marketingMessage options:0 
                        range:NSMakeRange(0, [marketingMessage length])])
    {
        ...
    }