Re: Release understanding help?

FROM : j o a r
DATE : Tue Dec 07 21:56:04 2004

On 2004-12-07, at 19.25, Thomas Davie wrote:

> I don't see why stringWithFormat is considered to be better than
> stringByAppendingString...


Only because I did in one line what you did in two. Just a little bit
more readable (IMO), nothing more.

> [NSString stringWithFormat:@"0123456789mc/\" %@", [[NSUserDefaults
> standardUserDefaults] objectForKey:NSDecimalSeparator];
> and
> [@"0123456789mc/\" " stringByAppendingString:[[NSUserDefaults
> standardUserDefaults] objectForKey];
> are pretty much as readable as each other.  In fact the second one
> could be considered clearer because the reader doesn't have to scan
> along the string to find the %@. They are equally efficient (they both
> have to create and free two string objects).  Is there a reason to
> chose one over the other... Other than that the second is more
> readable.


That was my only point. And I agree, in the end the result would be the
same - and it's of course also subject to personal preference.

It might even be better to append the string, as you would avoid the
pitfalls of having to think about what you pass as a format string
(it's bad if it contains unexpected "%" characters...).

I consider readability (and hence maintainability) to be very
important, and something to really try to strive for - so it's worth
thinking about.

j o a r