Question

I’m working on an app in which I need to scan through a string to populate some UITextViews. Basically the data is like this:

Time Period: 10am-12pm
Temperature: 45F
Wind: 123 degrees @ 5mph

Time Period: 1am-3pm
Temperature: 53F
Wind: 133 degrees @ 2mph

Time Period: 4am-5pm
Temperature: 50F
Wind: 110 degrees @ 7mph

The problem is that there is not a set number of time periods that are available at any given time. So I just have to loop through until I reach the end. Is there a way to create a textview inside a loop?

    UITextView *textField1 = [[UITextView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 0, 0)];
    UITextView *textField2 = [[UITextView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 0, 0)];
    UITextView *textField3 = [[UITextView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 0, 0)];
                   .....

So could I create the textfields at runtime until it reaches the end of the string or would I have to create the max number that it could possibly need then just use them if needed?

Thanks,
Andrew Boos

Answer 1

Sure you can.

First divide your data string using either [NSString componentsSeparatedByString] or [NSString componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet] to get an NSArray of substrings.

//assuming your data is separated by newlines
NSArray * substrings = [data_input componentsSeparatedByString:@"\n"];

//loop over the substrings creating textfields

    for (int i = 0; i < [substrings count]; i++)
    {
        CGRect frame = CGrectMake(0, i * 40, 100, 30);
        UITextField * tf = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame: frame];
        tf.text = [substrings objectAtIndex:i];

        //add as subview
        [view addSubview: tf];

        //if you are not using ARC release the textfield
    }

//disclaimer: written this on the go, may contain some spelling mistakes etc, but should be enough to get you going.