How can I create a UIColor from a hex string?

Question

How can I create a UIColor from a hexadecimal string format, such as #00FF00?

Answer 1

I ended up creating a category for UIColor that I can just reuse in my other projects, and added this function:

+ (UIColor *)colorFromHex:(unsigned long)hex
{
    return [UIColor colorWithRed:((float)((hex & 0xFF0000) >> 16))/255.0
                           green:((float)((hex & 0xFF00) >> 8))/255.0
                            blue:((float)(hex & 0xFF))/255.0
                           alpha:1.0];
}

The usage goes like:

UIColor *customRedColor = [UIColor colorFromHex:0x990000];

This is far faster than passing on a string and converting it to a number then shifting the bits.

You can also import the category from inside your .pch file so you can easily use colorFromHex everywhere in your app like it's built-in to UIColor:

#ifdef __OBJC__
    #import 
    #import 
    // Your other stuff here...
    #import "UIColor+HexColor.h"
#endif