Using scanf with NSStrings

Question

I want the user to input a string and then assign the input to an NSString. Right now my code looks like this:

NSString *word; 

scanf("%s", &word);

Answer 1

scanf does not work with any object types. If you have a C string and want to create an NSString from it, use +[NSString stringWithBytes:length:encoding:].

Answer 2

The scanf function reads into a C string (actually an array of char), like this:

char word[40];

int nChars = scanf("%39s", word);   // read up to 39 chars (leave room for NUL)

You can convert a char array into NSString like this:

NSString* word2 = [NSString stringWithBytes:word 
                                     length:nChars
                                   encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

However scanf only works with console (command line) programs. If you're trying to get input on a Mac or iOS device then scanf is not what you want to use to get user input.