Question

I’m trying to create a string containing (unicode) ‘stars’ based on an integer rating. I currently have:

NSMutableString *stars = [NSMutabelString stars];
for (int i = 0; i < rating; i++)
{
    [stars appendString:@"\u2605"];
}

However, I find this a bit ugly. Does a way exist to construct such a string without using this looping method? Something using the string formats?

Answer 1

Sure – to do this on a single line you can use the stringByPaddingToLength method:

[@"" stringByPaddingToLength: rating withString: @"\u2605" startingAtIndex:0];

…should hopefully do the trick for you – and no need to create any subclasses or categories, etc!