Filter array by first letter of string property

Question

I have an NSArray with objects that have a name property.

I would like filter the array by name

    NSString *alphabet = [agencyIndex objectAtIndex:indexPath.section];
    //---get all states beginning with the letter---
    NSPredicate *predicate =
    [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"SELF beginswith[c] %@", alphabet];
    NSMutableArray *listSimpl = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
    for (int i=0; i<[[Database sharedDatabase].agents count]; i++) {
        Town *_town = [[Database sharedDatabase].agents objectAtIndex:i];
        [listSimpl addObject:_town];
    }
    NSArray *states = [listSimpl filteredArrayUsingPredicate:predicate];

But I get an error - "Can't do a substring operation with something that isn't a string (lhs = <1, Arrow> rhs = A)"

How can I do this? I would like to filter the array for the first letter in name being 'A'.

Answer 1

Try with following code

NSPredicate *pred = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"SELF like %@", yourName];
NSArray *filteredArr = [yourArray filteredArrayUsingPredicate:pred];

EDITED :

NSPredicate pattern should be:

NSPredicate *pred =[NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"name beginswith[c] %@", alphabet];