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up vote 0 down vote favorite

I wan't to "know" how to put a string at a location in another string. I already know because I figured out another way to do this. But I wan't to know the real way, does it even exist?

I'm also asking this question for future questions on how to put this string at a location in another string the "false" way (in case it can't be done the real way)

What I mean about putting a (sub)string at a location of string is for example to put

this string:@"Hello" at location:5 inString:@"123456789"

I want the results to be:@"12345Hello6789" Can this be done the real way? something like this fake code:

[str stringByPuttingString:@"s" atLocation:5];//this code does not exist

I figured out other ways to get this done, can we get it to shorter code?

-(NSString *)putString:(NSString *)str atLocation:(int)location ofString:(NSString *)mainString {
    NSRange range = NSMakeRange(location, 0);
    return [mainString stringByReplacingCharactersInRange:range withString:str];
}

and

-(NSString *)putString:(NSString *)str atLocation:(int)location ofString:(NSString *)mainString {
    NSString *first = [mainString substringToIndex:location];
NSString *last = [mainString substringFromIndex:location];
return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%@%@", first, str, last];
}

The first one feels best, any other ideas or real ideas?

Jonathan, in future cases of this "problem".

share|improve this question
2  
Look at NSMutableString. – rmaddy Nov 20 '13 at 18:27

3 Answers 3

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Why not just use an NSMutableString?

NSMutableString *string = [NSMutableString stringWithString:@"123456789"];

[string insertString:@"Hello" atIndex:5];

NSLog(@"%@", string);

Outputs:

12345Hello6789
share|improve this answer
    
Why are you creating the mutable string from a C string? You can do string = [NSMutableString stringWithString:@"123456789"]` or string = [@"123456789" mutableString]. – rmaddy Nov 20 '13 at 18:34
    
You're right, Im so used to seeing stringWithString telling me its redundant that I forgot to use it for this case. Edited the answer to reflect your comment. – Peter Foti Nov 20 '13 at 18:36
up vote 2 down vote

You can use NSMutableString to accomplish this task. Specifically, see the reference to the insertString:atIndex: method which will do exactly what you want, i.e. insert a string into another string at a specified location. API LINK

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

you can implement this by using NSMutableString method insertString:atIndex:

Inserts into the receiver the characters of a given string at a given location.

- (void)insertString:(NSString *)aString atIndex:(NSUInteger)anIndex

Parameters

aString The string to insert into the receiver. aString must not be nil.

anIndex The location at which aString is inserted. The location must not exceed the bounds of the receiver.

Taken from apple developer classes ref

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