You can't do it directly via NSData however NSURLConnection would support such a thing by loading the image asynchronously and using connection:didReceiveData: to check how much data you have received. If you go over your limit just send the cancel message to NSURLConnection to stop the request.
Simple example: (receivedData is defined in the header as NSMutableData)
@implementation TestConnection
- (id)init {
[self loadURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://stackoverflow.com/content/img/so/logo.png"]];
return self;
}
- (BOOL)loadURL:(NSURL *)inURL {
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:inURL];
NSURLConnection *conn = [NSURLConnection connectionWithRequest:request delegate:self];
if (conn) {
receivedData = [[NSMutableData data] retain];
} else {
return FALSE;
}
return TRUE;
}
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)conn didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response {
[receivedData setLength:0];
}
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)conn didReceiveData:(NSData *)data {
[receivedData appendData:data];
if ([receivedData length] > 5120) { //5KB
[conn cancel];
}
}
- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)conn {
// do something with the data
NSLog(@"Succeeded! Received %d bytes of data", [receivedData length]);
[receivedData release];
}
@end