length property of NSString object has a value that is incorrect

Question

I am accessing the address book on the iPhone and storing the phone numbers inside of an NSString object called numberValues. Originally these phone numbers are surrounded by a ton of extra junk like quotations, plus signs, parentheses, blank spaces etc. so I have all of these rangeOfString and stringByReplacingOccurencesOf method calls setup to get rid of all the extra code.

After deleting all of the extra junk, I am left with 10 digit phone numbers and that is all. So if a contact has 1 phone number, then my numberValues object should have a length property of 10. If a contact has 2 phone numbers, then my numberValues object should have a length property of 20.

Here's what's weird. When I NSLog numberValues.length on a contact with one phone number, it prints a length of 12 to the console. If I do the same thing on a contact with two phone numbers, it prints a length of 23 to the console.

I do not understand why the length property is printing with a bloated number when I have taken the time to delete all of the extra junk, including blank spaces, AND when I NSLog the numberValues object you can clearly see in the log that it contains 10 digit phone numbers and nothing more.

Here is how a contact with 1 phone number prints to the log when I do NSLog(@"%@", numberValues) :

2014-01-19 10:36:54.912 PhotoTest1[2658:60b] 
9495553119

And remember that when I do NSLog(@"%d", numberValues.length) it will print out 12.

Here is how a contact with 2 phone numbers prints to the log when I do NSLog(@"%@", numberValues) :

014-01-19 10:36:54.737 PhotoTest1[2658:60b] 
7142973557
7149557735

And remember that when I do NSLog(@"%d", numberValues.length) it will print out 23.

Any ideas why the length properties are longer than they should be?

Thanks for the help.

EDIT: Here is all of my code starting right after I successfully gain access to the user's address book and then all the way down to where I start accessing the length property of the numberValues object:

int z = allContacts.count - 1;


    for (int i = 0; i < z; i++)


    {

        NSArray *allContacts = (__bridge_transfer NSArray
                                *)ABAddressBookCopyArrayOfAllPeople(m_addressbook);



        ABRecordRef contactPerson = (__bridge ABRecordRef)allContacts[i];


        NSString *firstName = (__bridge_transfer NSString
                               *)ABRecordCopyValue(contactPerson, kABPersonFirstNameProperty);

        ABMultiValueRef *phoneNumber = ABRecordCopyValue(contactPerson, kABPersonPhoneProperty);



        NSMutableArray *numbers = [NSMutableArray array];

        //NSLog(@"The count: %ld", ABMultiValueGetCount(phoneNumber));

        NSString *number = (__bridge_transfer NSString*)ABMultiValueCopyArrayOfAllValues(phoneNumber);



        [numbers addObject:number];

        NSString *numberValues = [[NSString alloc]initWithFormat:@"%@", number];


        NSLog(@"Here are the numbers for the contact named %@: %@", firstName, numberValues);



        if([numberValues rangeOfString:@"+"].location == NSNotFound) {

            NSLog(@"Phone Number does not contain a plus sign.");

            } else {



               numberValues =  [numberValues stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"+1" withString:@""];

                NSLog(@"This new number value should not have a + anymore: %@", numberValues);



            }

        if([numberValues rangeOfString:@" ("].location == NSNotFound) {

            NSLog(@"No phone numbers contain blank space with start of parentheses");



        } else {

            NSLog(@"Phone number(s) do contain blank space with start of parentheses");

            numberValues = [numberValues stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" (" withString:@""];

            NSLog(@"The new number values should not contain a blank space with the start of parentheses: %@", numberValues);


        }


        if([numberValues rangeOfString:@") "].location == NSNotFound) {

            NSLog(@"Phone number(s) do not contain ) and a blank space");



        } else {


            NSLog(@"Phone numbers do contain ) and a blank space");

            numberValues = [numberValues stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@") " withString:@""];

            NSLog(@"These new phone number values should not have ) with a blank space after it: %@", numberValues);


        }

        if([numberValues rangeOfString:@"-"].location == NSNotFound) {

            NSLog(@"No numbers contain a dash");



        } else {


            NSLog(@"Number(s) does contain a dash");

            numberValues = [numberValues stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"-" withString:@""];

            NSLog(@"The new number values should not have any dashes: %@", numberValues);


        }

        if([numberValues rangeOfString:@"("].location == NSNotFound) {

            NSLog(@"Number(s) do not contain a (");


        } else {


            NSLog(@"Number(s) contains a (");

            numberValues = [numberValues stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"(" withString:@""];

            NSLog(@"The new number(s) should not have any ( in them: %@", numberValues);



        }

        if ([numberValues rangeOfString:@"\""].location == NSNotFound) {


            NSLog(@"Number does not contain any quotations");

        } else {


            NSLog(@"Number(s) do contain quotations");

            numberValues = [numberValues stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"\"" withString:@""];

            NSLog(@"Numbers should not have any quotations: %@", numberValues);
        }

        if([numberValues rangeOfString:@")"].location == NSNotFound) {

            NSLog(@"The final ) has been deleted");


        } else {

            NSLog(@"Need to delete the final )");

            numberValues = [numberValues stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@")" withString:@""];

            NSLog(@"Final value(s) should not have a trailing ) at the end: %@", numberValues);



        }

        if([numberValues rangeOfString:@","].location == NSNotFound) {

            NSLog(@"The final , has been deleted");


        } else {

            NSLog(@"Need to delete the final ,");

            numberValues = [numberValues stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"," withString:@""];

            NSLog(@"%@", numberValues);

            NSLog(@"Final value(s) should not have a trailing , at the end: %lu", (unsigned long)numberValues.length);



        }

        if([numberValues rangeOfString:@" "].location == NSNotFound) {

            NSLog(@"No blank spaces.");


        } else {

            NSLog(@"There are blank spaces that need to be deleted");

            numberValues = [numberValues stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" " withString:@""];

            NSLog(@"%@", numberValues);



        }

        NSLog(@"RIGHT BEFORE THE NEW IF STATEMENT");
        NSLog(@"%d", numberValues.length);

        if(numberValues.length < 11) {

            NSLog(@"RUNNING PFQUERY");


            PFQuery *query = [PFQuery queryWithClassName:@"_User"];



            [query whereKey:@"username" equalTo:numberValues];


            [query findObjectsInBackgroundWithBlock:^(NSArray *objects, NSError *error) {
                if (!error) {


                    NSLog(@"Here are the objects that have been returned from Parse: %@", objects);


                } else {

                    NSLog(@"CHARACTERS: %d", numberValues.length);

                    int howManyNumbers = numberValues.length / 10;

                    NSLog(@"%d", howManyNumbers);

                }

EDIT 2 FOR VEDDERMATIC'S COMMENT:

I just did NSLog(@"###%@###", numberValues); and this is how it prints to the log:

2014-01-19 11:06:00.529 PhotoTest1[2678:60b] ###
3097679973
###

Answer 1

The length is correct, there are more characters that you are not stripping. There are over a million characters supported by NSString and you can't check for all of them.

Instead you should use RegEx to delete everything that is not a number.

NSRegularExpression* regex = [NSRegularExpression regularExpressionWithPattern:@"[^0-9]" options:0 error:nil];

NSString *phoneNumber = [regex stringByReplacingMatchesInString:phoneNumber options:0 range:NSMakeRange(0, phoneNumber.length) withTemplate:@""];