Question

In my iPhone application I need to use a nonstandard character (which cannot insert using a keyboard directly) as a string separator. Then i need to store that string in a column in my sqlite db. When i read that string from the db, I need to use that special character to split that string.

For example lets Say # is a nonstandard char. Then Im going to create new string as ‘firstname#lastname’, and stored into database. Then I use that # to separate out the first name and last name from the database. Can any one help me to do that..??

Answer 1

To join firstName and lastName using a #.

NSString *fullName = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@#%@", firstName, lastName];

To get them back:

NSArray *components = [myStr componentsSeparatedByString:@"#"];
NSString *firstName = [components objectAtIndex:0];
NSString *lastName = [components objectAtIndex:1];

You can use # just like any other character. And if you think that user may include # in names then you can use more complex combinations as suggested by Vignesh. Like this:

NSString *fullName = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@#?%@", firstName, lastName];
NSArray *components = [myStr componentsSeparatedByString:@"#?"];

EDIT(after comment): If you want to use higher value than 128 then you can easily create a string by using %C modifier.

NSInteger val = 140;
NSString *separator = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%C", val];
NSString *fullName = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%@%@", firstName, separator, lastName];
NSArray *components = [myStr componentsSeparatedByString:separator];