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".

---

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)

👍