Question

I’m writing a small app for the iphone and I’m trying to write a function that will insert an NSMutableString into an NSArray in alphabetical order. Also I’ll be writing a sort to sort the entire array as well. For both cases I’m wondering what the best way of comparing NSMutableStrings is. Is there a specific function I can use?

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

I think you’re looking for

(NSComparisonResult)[aString compare: bString];

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/nsstring_Class/Reference/NSString.html#//apple_ref/occ/instm/NSString/compare:

You can use this or one of the related methods if you’re doing insertion sort. However, if you want to do a one time sort of the NSMutableArray, you can use one of the NSMutableArray sorting methods such as sortUsingComparator:.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSMutableArray_Class/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/occ/instm/NSMutableArray/sortUsingComparator: