UISearchBar search two arrays

Question

I Have a search bar that searches an array, and updates a UITableView with the results. The table view is a list of books, with titles and authors:

Right now, the search bar only searches the titles but I would like to make it search the authors as well. Here is the search code I have (I got it from http://blog.webscale.co.in/?p=228).

- (void)searchBar:(UISearchBar *)searchBar textDidChange:(NSString *)searchText
{
    [tableData removeAllObjects];// remove all data that belongs to previous search
    if([searchText isEqualToString:@""]||searchText==nil){
        [tableView reloadData];
        return;
    }

    for(NSString *name in dataSource){
         NSInteger counter = 0;

        //NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc]init];
        NSRange r = [[name lowercaseString] rangeOfString:[searchText lowercaseString]];
        if(r.location != NSNotFound)
            [tableData addObject:name];


            counter++;
    }
        //[pool release];


    [tableView reloadData];

}

dataSource is the NSMutable Array that contains the titles. the array that contains the authors is called "author". "tableData" is the array that stores the cells that should appear on the screen (the cells that contain terms being searched for).

Thanks so much,

Luke

Answer 1

I would modify the dataSource array to contain both the titles and authors by creating an NSDictionary with key value pairs (a Book class would be better).

//Do this for each book
NSDictionary * book = NSDictionary *dict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
    title, @"TITLE", author, @"AUTHOR", nil];
[dataSource addObject:book];

After that you can change your search method to work with the NSDictionary instead.

- (void)searchBar:(UISearchBar *)searchBar textDidChange:(NSString *)searchText
{

    [tableData removeAllObjects];

    if(searchText != nil && ![searchText isEqualToString:@""]){

        for(NSDictionary * book in dataSource){
            NSString * title = [book objectForKey:@"TITLE"];
            NSString * author = [book objectForKey:@"AUTHOR"];

            NSRange titleRange = [[title lowercaseString] rangeOfString:[searchText lowercaseString]];
            NSRange authorRange = [[author lowercaseString] rangeOfString:[searchText lowercaseString]];

            if(titleRange.location != NSNotFound || authorRange.location != NSNotFound)
                [tableData addObject:book];
            }

    }

    [tableView reloadData];
}

Note using this method you would have the change your cellForRowAtIndexPath method to work with the NSDictionary and not the title strings.

Answer 2

-(void)searchBar:(UISearchBar *)searchBar1 textDidChange:(NSString *)searchText
{
if ([searchText length]==0)
{
  temp_array1 =[array_Main1 mutableCopy];
  temp_array2 =[array_Main2 mutableCopy];
  temp_array3 =[array_Main3 mutableCopy];
}
 else
{
  [temp_array1 removeAllObjects];
  [temp_array2 removeAllObjects];
  [temp_array3 removeAllObjects];
   int g = 0;
   for (int i=0; i< array_Main1.count;i++)
    {
        NSRange Range1 = [[array_Main1 objectAtIndex:i] rangeOfString:searchText options:NSCaseInsensitiveSearch];
        NSRange Range2 = [[array_Main2 objectAtIndex:i] rangeOfString:searchText options:NSCaseInsensitiveSearch];
        NSRange Range3 = [[array_Main3 objectAtIndex:i] rangeOfString:searchText options:NSCaseInsensitiveSearch];
        if (Range1.location != NSNotFound ||  Range2.location != NSNotFound ||  Range3.location != NSNotFound )
        {
            [temp_array1 addObject:[array_Main1 objectAtIndex:g]];
            [temp_array2 addObject:[array_Main2 objectAtIndex:g]];
            [temp_array3 addObject:[array_Main3 objectAtIndex:g]];

        }
        g++;
    }
}
[table reloadData];
}

Answer 3

- This is Helpful when you search from Dictionary.

NSMutableArray *contentList;
NSMutableArray *filteredContentList;
BOOL isSearching;

// firstSection is array which already filled.
// contentList array for value of particular key
// filteredContentList is search array from actual array.

  - (void)searchTableList {
        NSString *searchString = searchBar.text;

        NSPredicate *filterPredicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"frame_code beginswith[c] %@", searchString];
        NSArray *filteredArr = [firstSection filteredArrayUsingPredicate:filterPredicate];
        if(contentList.count > 0)
            [contentList removeAllObjects];
        [filteredContentList addObjectsFromArray:filteredArr];
    }

    - (void)searchBarTextDidBeginEditing:(UISearchBar *)searchBar1 {

        if ([searchBar1.text length] != 0)
            isSearching = YES;
        else
            isSearching = NO;
    }

    - (void)searchBar:(UISearchBar *)searchBar textDidChange:(NSString *)searchText {
        NSLog(@"Text change - %d",isSearching);

        //Remove all objects first.
        [filteredContentList removeAllObjects];

        if([searchText length] != 0) {
            isSearching = YES;
            [self searchTableList];
        }
        else {
            isSearching = NO;
        }
        [tblFrameList_SComplete reloadData];
    }

    - (void)searchBarCancelButtonClicked:(UISearchBar *)searchBar {
        NSLog(@"Cancel clicked");
    }

    - (void)searchBarSearchButtonClicked:(UISearchBar *)searchBar {
        NSLog(@"Search Clicked");
        [self searchTableList];
    }