Question

    -(void)resultaat{
    for(id key in [addressbook allKeys]){
        NSLog(@"\n%@ \n-\n  %@ ", key,[addressbook objectForKey:key]  );
    } 
}

I have a method resultaat which loops over a mutable dictionary, this dictionary has the alfabet as keys and one or more person object(s) in an array as value. The personobject has a name, multiple emails, multiple phone numbers.

In the person class I used description to join the mails and phone numbers into comma-separated strings and output the results.

-(NSString *) description {

    NSString *joinedmails = [mails componentsJoinedByString:@","];
    NSString *joinedtelnrs = [telnrs componentsJoinedByString:@","];

    return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"\n Naam: %@ \n email: %@ \n telefoonnr: %@",naam,joinedmails, joinedtelnrs];
}

This works fine if I do e.g.

NSLog(@"%@",waldo);

I get

  2012-02-27 17:39:59.355 Adresboek[5162:503] 
     Naam: Waldo Odlaw 
     email: [e-mail],[e-mail] 
     telefoonnr: 123456789,987654321

But when I loop over the entire adressboek the person object is not returned like above

-(void)resultaat{
for(id key in [addressbook allKeys]){
    NSLog(@"\n%@ \n-\n  %@ ", key,[addressbook objectForKey:key]  );
} 

}

    2012-02-27 17:39:59.407 Adresboek[5162:503] 
    w 
    -
      (
        "\n Naam: Waldo Odlaw \n email: [e-mail],[e-mail] \n telefoonnr: 123456789,987654321",
        "\n Naam: Wuno Odlaw \n email: [e-mail],[e-mail] \n telefoonnr: 2468101214,1412108642"
    ) 
    2012-02-27 17:39:59.408 Adresboek[5162:503] 
    j 
    -
      (
    ) 

How can I format my output.

Answer 1

The documentation for the NSArray class’s -description method says it will return a description of the array formatted as a property list. I suspect that its implementation is taking the -description from your PersonObject and converting all of the newline characters to a ‘/’ character followed by a ‘n’ character. That way it shows the newline in your strings while still remaining a valid property list format.

To get what you want I think you will need to manually loop through the array to build up a string that looks the way you want it. If you want to print the whole address book using the %@ format specifier, then you would probably need to subclass NSArray and provide your own -description method for the arrays you store in your dictionary.