How to make an C vector or array from an NSArray?

Question

Is that possible? I've seen no method that would generate a plain old C vector or array. I have just NSNumber objects in my array which I need as C vector or array.

Answer 1

If you need your C array to carry objects, you can declare it as :

id cArray[ ARRAY_COUNT ];

or

id * cArray = malloc(sizeof(id)*[array count]);

Then you can populate it using a loop:

for (int i=0 ; i<[array count] ; i++)
    cArray[i] = [array objectAtIndex:i];

Answer 2

An alternative to mouviciel's answer is to use NSArray's getObjects:range: method.

id cArray[10];
NSArray *nsArray = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"1", @"2" ... @"10", nil];

[nsArray getObjects:cArray range:NSMakeRange(0, 10)];

Or, if you don't know how many objects are in the array at compile-time:

NSUInteger itemCount = [nsArray count];
id *cArray = malloc(itemCount * sizeof(id));

[nsArray getObjects:cArray range:NSMakeRange(0, itemCount)];

... do work with cArray ...

free(cArray);