string - How to get the first N words from a NSString in Objective-C?

Question

What's the simplest way, given a string:

NSString *str = @"Some really really long string is here and I just want the first 10 words, for example";

to result in an NSString with the first N (e.g., 10) words?

EDIT: I'd also like to make sure it doesn't fail if the str is shorter than N.

Answer 1

If the words are space-separated:

NSInteger nWords = 10;
NSRange wordRange = NSMakeRange(0, nWords);
NSArray *firstWords = [[str componentsSeparatedByString:@" "] subarrayWithRange:wordRange];

if you want to break on all whitespace:

NSCharacterSet *delimiterCharacterSet = [NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet];
NSArray *firstWords = [[str componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:delimiterCharacterSet] subarrayWithRange:wordRange];

Then,

NSString *result = [firstWords componentsJoinedByString:@" "];