Creating NSPredicate dynamically by setting the key programmatically

Question

Why does the former of following snippets work while not the latter ?

Snippet 1

NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"(coin_unique == %@)", [NSNumber numberWithInt:species]];

Snippet 2

// Does NOT Work
NSString *predicateText = @"coin_unique";
NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"(%@ == %@)", predicateText, [NSNumber numberWithInt:species]];

I have to dynamically create predicate depending upon the argument received in my method.

Answer 1

coin_unique is a key, so it needs the %K format specifier:

NSString *predicateText = @"coin_unique";
NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"(%K == %@)", predicateText, [NSNumber numberWithInt:species]];

The format syntax is described quite well here.

Answer 2

I got the following error even though my NSPredicate was formatted correctly.

*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInternalInconsistencyException', reason: 'Insufficient arguments for conversion characters specified in format string.' site:stackoverflow.com

Like a fool I forgot to pass a second argument to the predicate format (because there were two %@). I.e. NSPredicate(format:predicateFormat,argumentArray:[Date()]) has only one element in the array when it needs to be two: [Date(), Date()]