title: Objective-C, Simple String input from Console?
body: <p>I honestly did a) search using key words and b) read the 'questions with similar titles' before asking this.</p>
  
  <p>Also I tried to make this question more concise, but I had a hard time doing that in this case. If you feel the question is too wordy, I get it. Just don't try to answer.</p>
  
  <p>I'm trying to write very simple objective-C programs that mirror the basic assignments in my introductory java class. I worked through an objective-c book over the summer and now I want to do lots of practice problems in objective-c, at the same time as I do java practice problems. I'm avoiding the objective-c GUI environment and just want to focus on working with the language for awhile. I still have a lot to learn about how to figure things out.</p>
  
  <p>The program I'm duplicating from my java homework, is a standard type. I ask the user for number input and string input via the console. I was able to get numeric input from the console using an example I found here using scan f. (I will put the couple code lines below). But I'm unsure on how to get console input and store it in a string (NSString). I'm trying to learn to use the apple documentation and found a reference to a scan type command, but I cannot figure out how to USE the command. The one that seems likely is</p>
  
  <p>scanCharactersFromSet:(NSCharacterSet <em>)scanSet intoString:(NSString *</em>)name;</p>
  
  <p>Here's what I understand and works</p>
  
  <pre><code>int age = 0;
  NSLog (@"How old are y'all?");
  
  scanf("%d", &amp;age);
  
  
  NSLog (@"\n Wow, you are %d !", age);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But I don't understand how to pickup an NSString called 'name'. I THINK I'm supposed to make my 'name'a pointer, because the class is NSString. </p>
  
  <p>(BTW I did try using scanf to pickup the string, but the compiler doesn't like me trying to use scanf in conjunction with name. It says that I shouldn't be using 'scanf' because it's expecting a different kind of data. I'm not sure where I found the data type 'i'. I was looking through my text for different ideas. I'm guessing that scanf is related to 'scanfloat' which clearly deals with numeric data, so this is not a big surprise)</p>
  
  <p>I realize that 'scanf' isn't the right command (and I don't really get why I can't even find scanf in the apple documentation - maybe it's C?)</p>
  
  <p>I'm guessing that scanCharactersFromSet might be the right thing to use, but I just don't understand how you figure out what goes where in the command. I guess I tend to learn by example, and I haven't found an example. I'd like to figure out how to learn properly by reading the documentation. But I'm not there yet.</p>
  
  <pre><code>NSString* name ;
  
  scanf("%i", &amp;name);
  
  //scanCharactersFromSet:(NSCharacterSet *)scanSet intoString:(NSString **)name;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>...</p>
  
  <p>My book is oriented towards moving me into a gui environment, so it doesn't deal with input.</p>
  
  <p>Thank you for any pointers you can give me. </p>
  
  <p>Laurel</p>