Initialize Array of Objects using NSArray

Question

I'm pretty new to Objective-C and iOS so I've been playing around with the Picker View. I've defined a Person Class so that when you create a new Person it automatically gives that person a name and age.

#import "Person.h"  @implementation Person  @synthesize personName, age;  -(id)init {     self = [super init];     if(self)     {         personName = [self randomName];         age = [self randomAge];     }      return self; }  -(NSString *) randomName {     NSString* name;     NSArray* nameArr = [NSArray arrayWithObjects: @"Jill Valentine", @"Peter Griffin", @"Meg Griffin", @"Jack Lolwut",                             @"Mike Roflcoptor", @"Cindy Woods", @"Jessica Windmill", @"Alexander The Great",                             @"Sarah Peterson", @"Scott Scottland", @"Geoff Fanta", @"Amanda Pope", @"Michael Meyers",                             @"Richard Biggus", @"Montey Python", @"Mike Wut", @"Fake Person", @"Chair",                             nil];     NSUInteger randomIndex = arc4random() % [nameArr count];     name = [nameArr objectAtIndex: randomIndex];     return name; }  -(NSInteger *) randomAge {     //lowerBound + arc4random() % (upperBound - lowerBound);     NSInteger* num = (NSInteger*)(1 + arc4random() % (99 - 1));      return num; }  @end 

Now I want to make an array of Persons so I can throw a bunch into the picker, pick one Person and show their age. First though I need to make an array of Persons. How do I make an array of objects, initialize and allocate them?

Answer 1

There is also a shorthand of doing this:

NSArray *persons = @[person1, person2, person3]; 

It's equivalent to

NSArray *persons = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:person1, person2, person3, nil]; 

As iiFreeman said, you still need to do proper memory management if you're not using ARC.

Answer 2

NSMutableArray *persons = [NSMutableArray array]; for (int i = 0; i < myPersonsCount; i++) {    [persons addObject:[[Person alloc] init]]; } NSArray *arrayOfPersons = [NSArray arrayWithArray:persons]; // if you want immutable array 

also you can reach this without using NSMutableArray:

NSArray *persons = [NSArray array]; for (int i = 0; i < myPersonsCount; i++) {    persons = [persons arrayByAddingObject:[[Person alloc] init]]; } 

One more thing - it's valid for ARC enabled environment, if you going to use it without ARC don't forget to add autoreleased objects into array!

[persons addObject:[[[Person alloc] init] autorelease];