[GeeYouEye]

I'm trying to open a file and get an NSString from it, which then is a data member of a class. Only problem is, when I use

Code:
[inText initWithContentsOfFile:[inPathField stringValue]];

the result of NSLog(@"%@", inText); is (null).

Here's the relevant code snippets:

Code:
@interface SYHorse : NSObject {
	NSString *inText;
	NSString *outText;
	IBOutlet NSTextField *inPathField;
	IBOutlet NSTextField *outPathField;
        ...
}
...
@end

@implementation SYHorse
- (IBAction)goButtonTrigger:(id)sender
{
	...
	[inText initWithContentsOfFile:[inPathField stringValue]];
	NSLog(@"The file is %@", [inPathField stringValue]);
	NSLog(@"The contents of the file are: %@", inText );
	...
}

Assuming the inPathField contains "/Untitled.txt", the output, excluding the time and date stuff is

Code:
The file is /Untitled.txt
The contents of the file are: (null)
-[NSPlaceholderMutableString initWithString:]: nil string (or other) argument

The last error is what happens when the next function in the program tries to use inText.

And no, /Untitled.txt is not empty.

[Brass]

Have you alloc'ed "inText" anywhere? You must alloc (allocate memory) for an object before you init (initialise) it. That would explain why the init methos (eg, initWithContentsOfFile:) is returning nil (NULL).

Usually objects are allocated and initialised at once like:

inText = [[NSString alloc] init];

or

inText = [[NSString alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:......];

[GeeYouEye]

I was under the impression that since its an instance variable/data member (it's late and I don't remember which term is the Obj-C vs. C++ term) of my class that it doesn't need to be explicitly alloc'ed. However, I tried changing it anyway and still got the same result.

Originally posted by GeeYouEye:
I was under the impression that since its an instance variable/data member (it's late and I don't remember which term is the Obj-C vs. C++ term) of my class that it doesn't need to be explicitly alloc'ed. However, I tried changing it anyway and still got the same result.

You should have declared inText as:

NSString *inText;

You have then allocated a pointer only - not the data. That is what you want. Now you can go ahead and use:

inText = [[NSString alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:......];

[GeeYouEye]

Originally posted by hayesk:
You should have declared inText as:

NSString *inText;

You have then allocated a pointer only - not the data. That is what you want. Now you can go ahead and use:

inText = [[NSString alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:......];

Okay, that worked. Thanks! Although now I'm not entirely sure why another program of mine works at all... I'll have to look at it again.