objective c - componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet gives me a bunch of empty strings -

ok, first , foremost, using gnustep way learn objective-c, there may differences between gnu , apple implementation. being said, shouldn't affect question.

anyways, understand conundrum, please parse following code visual receptacles:

#import <cocoa/cocoa.h> int main() {   nsautoreleasepool * pool = [[nsautoreleasepool alloc] init];   nsenumerator * lineenumerator = [[nsarray arraywithobjects: @"jim     1", @"steve   3", nil] objectenumerator];   nsstring * s;   while((s = [lineenumerator nextobject]))   {     nsarray * parts = [s componentsseparatedbycharactersinset: [nscharacterset whitespaceandnewlinecharacterset]];     nslog(@"%@", parts);   }   [pool drain];   return no; } 

and following output:

2010-10-07 10:03:50.809 a.out[24512] (jim, "", "", "", "", 1) 2010-10-07 10:03:50.812 a.out[24512] (steve, "", "", 3) 

my expected output be:

2010-10-07 10:03:50.809 a.out[24512] (jim, 1) 2010-10-07 10:03:50.812 a.out[24512] (steve, 3) 

but componentsseparatedbycharactersinset seems method comes close looking (by way, want prepared mixture of spaces, tabs, or other whitespace characters). there easy way standard libraries without writing new method?

i think you'll have use nsscanner:

while((s = [lineenumerator nextobject])) {     nsmutablearray *parts = [[nsmutablearray alloc] initwithcapacity:1];      nsscanner *scanner = [nsscanner scannerwithstring:s];     nsstring *token;     while ([scanner scanuptocharactersfromset:[nscharacterset whitespaceandnewlinecharacterset] intostring:&token]) {         [parts addobject:token];     }      nslog(@"%@", parts);     [parts release]; }