Comparing NSNumbers in Objective C

Question

I am a beginner at Objective-C and I am a bit confused at this scenario. I have the following code:

if (number1 < number2) {
    NSLog(@\"THE FOLLOWING NU         


        

Answer 1

For cases where you simply want to test whether two NSNumber properties hold the same value, then from the Apple documentation it seems that using

- (BOOL)isEqualToNumber:(NSNumber *)aNumber

is the most straightforward and efficient way to compare two NSNumber values.

For example:

if ([someNumber isEqualToNumber:someOtherNumber])
{
    // The numbers hold the same value
}
else
{
    // The numbers hold different values
}

The documentation also says "This method is more efficient than compare: if you know the two objects are numbers."

Whenever you need to know whether a value is smaller or greater, they offer the

- (NSComparisonResult)compare:(NSNumber *)aNumber

method, but personally I would prefer at that point to just pull out the integer values (or double values) and use regular < and > operators to do the comparison, because that makes the code much easier to read, like so:

if (firstNumber.intValue > secondNumber.intValue)
{
    // First number is greater than the second number
}
else if (firstNumber.intValue == secondNumber.intValue)
{
    // The two numbers have the same value
}
else
{
    // The first number is smaller than the second number
}

Something like that is much easier to read than calls to -compare:, in my opinion.

Erik