Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

6 Format Strings

Now that you know how functions work, let’s take a closer look at the printf function that you have been using to write to the log.

The printf function accepts a string as an argument and prints it to the log. A string is a “string” of characters strung together like beads on a necklace. Typically, a string is text.

A literal string is text surrounded by double quotes. In the AGoodStart project from Chapter 2, you called printf() with literal string arguments:

    // Print the beginning of the novel
    printf("It was the best of times.\n");
    printf("It was the worst of times.\n");

Your output looked like this:

It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times.

You can store a literal string in a variable ...