macOS Cocoa Help for a n00b

[antipex]

I'm getting started with Cocoa programming, and writing a quick little program. When I try to compile this code I get "error: parse error before '@' token". What's wrong???

#import "MakePassword.h"

@implementation MakePassword

- (IBAction)MakePassword:(id)sender
{
	char Randoms;
	//[NSString TheResult];
	
	srand([[NSDate date] timeIntervalSince1970]);
	
	Randoms = (char)rand();
	
	
	[ResultPasswordText setStringValue:@Randoms];
}

@end

And also, right now I just want it to display one character to see if it works. But how would I get it to generate, say, an 8 character string of random letters and numbers, then put it in ResultPasswordText?

Thanks!

 

[kpua]

The problem is that you didn't make write your string as @"Randoms", but just wrote @Randoms.

 

[HiRez]

I think actually you want to leave the @ out of there. @"Randoms" creates an Objective-C string constant, you don't want that. You don't need the @ symbol to access variables, such as chars.

To generate some pseudo-random alphanumeric codes, I might do something like this:

#define PASSWORD_LENGTH 8

- (IBAction)doMakePassword:(id)sender {
    srandom([[NSDate date] timeIntervalSince1970]);
    
    char randoms[PASSWORD_LENGTH];
    int i = 0;
    char aRandom = 0;
    for (i = 0; i < PASSWORD_LENGTH; i++) {
        while (YES) {
            aRandom = (char)random() + 128;
            if (((aRandom >= '0') && (aRandom <= '9')) || ((aRandom >= 'a') && (aRandom <= 'z'))) {
                randoms[i] = aRandom;
                break; // we found an alphanumeric character, move on
            }
        }
    }
    
    [resultPasswordText setStringValue:[NSString stringWithCString:(const char*)randoms length:PASSWORD_LENGTH]];
}

There are probably better ways to do that, but I think that works.

Also, in Objective-C, object instance names, variable names, and method names are always intercapped and uncapitalized ("myObject", "myMethod", "randoms", "makePassword"), while class names are capitalized and usually preceded with a two- or three-character code that is personal to you such as your initials ("NSString", "CSTBinaryCounter"). Constants are found in some different forms, but all caps with underscores is common ("PASSWORD_LENGTH"). On the Mac, prefixing a "k" to a name is another popular way to mark a constant ("kPasswordLength"). You also have a method named exactly the same as the class, which may not be a problem but it is usually not done.

 

[antipex]

Wow thanks for the help! I plugged that code in though and got "error: parse error before ';' token" on this line:

[ResultPasswordText setStringValue:[NSString stringWithCString:(const char*)randoms length:PASSWORD_LENGTH];

 

[DavidLeblond]

Wow thanks for the help! I plugged that code in though and got "error: parse error before ';' token" on this line:

[ResultPasswordText setStringValue:[NSString stringWithCString:(const char*)randoms length:PASSWORD_LENGTH];

Need another ]?

 

[HiRez]

Need another ]?

Yeah, sorry about that, I did some cutting and pasting and guess I dropped that somewhere...fixed it in my post.

 

[antipex]

Awesome - works wondefully! Thanks so much for your time and help