Byte array to utf8 string

Question

How do I get my byte array to a string that handles the Swedish letters å ä ö?

I do this at the moment: NSString *hexString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%c", resData[i]];

(resData contains ascii characters) But when I use the hexString in my output label I get jibberish for all non English chars. How can I make a selected byte to an encode that handles the Swedish characters?

Regards Daniel

Answer 1

I don't get it.. from NSString reference you have:

- (id)initWithBytes:(const void *)bytes length:(NSUInteger)length encoding:(NSStringEncoding)encoding

so you should just do

[[NSString alloc] initWithBytes:resData 
                  length:yourLength
                  encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]

Answer 2

resData does NOT contain ASCII characters, because ASCII does not include characters for å, ä, and ö. If resData is a UTF-8 encoded string, then some characters (including these) are encoded using more than one byte.

It looks like you want a way to print the *n*th character. First, do as @Jack said and turn those bytes into an NSString:

/* Assuming |resData| is NULL-terminated and UTF-8 encoded... */
NSString *text = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:resData];

Now, to print the *n*th character of text:

NSUInteger n = 3;
NSString *character = [text substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(n, 1)];
NSLog(@"character #%d: %@", n, character);

You can also set character as the string value of a control. It should display just fine.

The key take-away: byte[i] is NOT necessarily the same thing as the *i*th character. Text is always encoded, and you must always be (painfully) aware of that.