Escaping the @“ ” characters in Objective C

Question

I'm trying to set the background image of a view based on a passed "artistID." Here is my code so far:

 NSString *backgroundImageName = [[NSString alloc]initWithFormat:@"artistbackground%i.png",_artistID];


    self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithPatternImage:[UIImage imageNamed:backgroundImageName]];
    NSLog(@"%@",backgroundImageName);

unfortunately, for the parameter in ImageNamed, I'm passing in: artistibackground1

instead of:

@"artistbackgound1"

Any ideas on how to escape the @ and the quotes??

Thanks!!

Answer 1

self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithPatternImage:[UIImage imageNamed:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"@%@",backgroundImageName]];

Essentially make two strings, it will add the @"" in the second.

Answer 2

You should use \ before the character you want. An example:

NSLog(@"\@\"Try\"");

The code prints

@"Try"

Answer 3

Don't forget that even string constants are NSString objects in Objective-C. This is part of the magic! I frequently see programmers new to the language writing this line:

[NSString stringWithFormat:@"@%@",backgroundImageName];

But you can simplify this line to:

[@"@" stringByAppendingString:backgroundImageName];

Magic!