Issue with [string lastPathComponent]

Question

I want to extract the name of a file from a string like this

C:\IBM\...\images\custom\fileName.png

But

[string lastPathComponent];

gives me the whole string instead of fileName.png. What am I doing wrong here?

Answer 1

I believe lastPathComponent splits based on forward slash "/", your path contains only backslashes "\"

You can try replacing your backslashes:

[path stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"\\" withString:@"/"].lastPathComponent;

Answer 2

In addition to michaels answer, you could also do the following.

NSArray *listItems = [string componentsSeparatedByString:@"\\"];
NSString *endOfString = [listItems lastObject];    

as long as the string is not an empty or nil string, this will work.

Answer 3

And one other alternative to the other fine answers:

NSString *path = @"C:\IBM\...\images\custom\fileName.png";
NSRange backslashRange = [path rangeOfString:@"\\" options:NSBackwardsSearch];
NSString *filename = [path substringFromIndex:backslashRange.location + 1];

Of course this should have proper checking that the string actually has a backslash.

FYI - not that it matters if done on one or just a few strings but this approach is more efficient than the other answers because this approach doesn't needlessly process the whole string or create extra copies.