Question

What would be the best way to get every substring between double quotes and make it into an array?

For example, if the string (NSString) is:

@"abcd \"efgh\" ijklm \"no\" p \"qrst\" uvwx \"y\" z"

I want the result to be:

{@"efgh", @"no", @"qrst", @"y"}

as an NSArray.

Answer 1

This should get you started:

NSString *str = @"abcd \"efgh\" ijklm \"no\" p \"qrst\" uvwx \"y\" z";
NSMutableArray *target = [NSMutableArray array];
NSScanner *scanner = [NSScanner scannerWithString:str];
NSString *tmp;

while ([scanner isAtEnd] == NO)
{
    [scanner scanUpToString:@"\"" intoString:NULL];
    [scanner scanString:@"\"" intoString:NULL];
    [scanner scanUpToString:@"\"" intoString:&tmp];
    if ([scanner isAtEnd] == NO)
        [target addObject:tmp];
    [scanner scanString:@"\"" intoString:NULL];
}

for (NSString *item in target)
{
    NSLog(@"%@", item);
}