How do I check if a string contains another string in Objective-C?

Question

How can I check if a string (NSString) contains another smaller string?

I was hoping for something like:

NSString *string = @"hello bla bla"; NSLog(@"%d",[string containsSubstring:@"hello"]); 

But the closest I could find was:

if ([string rangeOfString:@"hello"] == 0) {     NSLog(@"sub string doesnt exist"); }  else {     NSLog(@"exists"); } 

Anyway, is that the best way to find if a string contains another string?

Answer 1

NSString *string = @"hello bla bla"; if ([string rangeOfString:@"bla"].location == NSNotFound) {   NSLog(@"string does not contain bla"); } else {   NSLog(@"string contains bla!"); } 

The key is noticing that rangeOfString: returns an NSRange struct, and the documentation says that it returns the struct {NSNotFound, 0} if the "haystack" does not contain the "needle".

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And if you're on iOS 8 or OS X Yosemite, you can now do: (*NOTE: This WILL crash your app if this code is called on an iOS7 device).

NSString *string = @"hello bla blah"; if ([string containsString:@"bla"]) {   NSLog(@"string contains bla!"); } else {   NSLog(@"string does not contain bla"); } 

(This is also how it would work in Swift)

👍