Question

I want to pass an NSString to a method and have that particular NSString name a new NSSMutableArray. Confusing? Programmatically looks like this:

+ (void)newMutableArrayWithName:(NSString*)theArrayName
{
     NSLog(@"Creating an array that is named: %@",theArrayName);
     NSMutableArray* theArrayName = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
}

Unfortunately, “theArrayName” is not affiliated with the argument passed to the method. Is there any way this is achievable?

Answer 1

The name of a variable is used by the compiler, and is set at compile-time, not at run time.

If you need to be able to associate a label with an array, I suggest that you use an NSDictionary to do something like this

NSString *theArrayName = @"My Cool Array";
NSMutableArray *theArray = [NSMutableArray array];
NSDictionary *theDictionary = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys: 
                                      theArray, theArrayName, nil];

You could have multiple “named” arrays in the dictionary, if you wanted, and could access them by the names that you gave them

[theDictionary objectForKey:@"My Cool Array"];