NSString manipulation. Remove only date

Question

If I have a NSString at looks like:

2-13-2014 Norway vs Canada Per 1 20-00 2

Its being parsed and the dates will change

How do I make it turn into

Norway vs Canada Per 1

In other words, drop the date and extra characters at the end.

Iv'e used:

NSArray * dateComponents = [cleanString
                            componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:
                            [NSCharacterSet
                             characterSetWithCharactersInString:@"-"]];

cleanString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@", [dateComponents objectAtIndex:2]]; 

output:

2014 Norway vs Canada Per 1 20

Thanks

Answer 1

If the format is consistently in a particular format you can use regular expressions. For example, if the format is always:

dd-dd-dddd xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx dd-dd d

Thus if you just want the Norway vs Canada Per 1 from your example (i.e. the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx from above), you could:

NSError *error;
NSRegularExpression *regex = [NSRegularExpression regularExpressionWithPattern:@"^\\s*\\d{1,2}-\\d{1,2}-\\d{2,4}\\s+(.+)\\s+\\d{1,2}-\\d{1,2}\\s*\\d\\s*$" options:0 error:&error];

NSTextCheckingResult *result = [regex firstMatchInString:string options:0 range:NSMakeRange(0, [string length])];
if (result) {
    NSRange range = [result rangeAtIndex:1];             // find the NSRange for the stuff in the parentheses
    NSString *found = [string substringWithRange:range]; // get the string for that range
    NSLog(@"found = '%@'", found);
}

If you need help deciphering the regex, I might refer you to the NSRegularExpression documentation.