How to reduce length of links OR set a fixed length for links detected in TTTAttributedLabel

Question

The links pasted by users are very long and contain "http://" etc and hence I want to restrict the length of links and show only the main website name or a bit more than that.

Example:

Link pasted by user:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/08/16/an-alleged-leak-of-lgs-nexus-5-2015-bullhead-pops-up-on-google/

Link I want to display in the label: www.androidpolice.com/2015/08/...

Is there any way to do it?

I searched and found something called attributedTruncationToken but I didn't understand much and I think it's related to truncation at the end of line.

Answer 1

I don't use TTTAttributeLabel but this answer is for all the future question seekers that are struggling to create a URL shortener without 3rd party API's.

Simply use a NSMutableAttributedString and pass into a UIDataDetectorTypeLink capable object:

Let's say your user inputs a link or passes a string entirely:

I am a user. I want to enter this URL to share to all other awesome users of Apple products, and only Apple products :). Check out my link here http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/08/16/an-alleged-leak-of-lgs-nexus-5-2015-bullhead-pops-up-on-google/

We can easily extract the text using commonly frequented methods:

NSString *userInput = @"I am a user. I want to enter this URL to share to all other awesome users of Apple products, and only Apple products :). Check out my link here http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/08/16/an-alleged-leak-of-lgs-nexus-5-2015-bullhead-pops-up-on-google/"

// get the range of the substring (url) starting with @"http://"
NSRange httpRange = [userInput rangeOfString:@"http://" options:NSCaseInsensitiveSearch];

if (httpRange.location == NSNotFound) {
    NSLog(@"URL not found");
} else {
    //Get the new string from the range we just found
    NSString *urlString = [userInput substringFromIndex:httpRange.location];
    //create the new url
    NSURL *newURL = [NSURL URLWithString:urlString];
    //cut off the last components of the string
    NSString *shortenedName = [urlString stringByDeletingLastPathComponent];
    //new output
    NSLog(@"%@", [NSString stringWithFormat:@"\n original user input : \n %@ \n original URL name : \n %@ \n shortenedName : \n %@", userInput, urlString, shortenedName]);

    //We have everything we need so all we have remaining to do is create the attributes and pass into a UITextView. 
    self.someTextView.attributedText = [self createHyperLinkForURL:newURL withName:shortenedName];
}

Where [self createHyperLinkForURL:newURL withName:shortenedName];

-(NSMutableAttributedString *)createHyperLinkForURL:(NSURL *)url withName:(NSString *)hyperLinkText {
    NSMutableAttributedString *string = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithString:hyperLinkText];
    [string beginEditing];
    [string addAttribute:NSLinkAttributeName
               value:url
               range:NSMakeRange(0, string.length)];
    [string endEditing];
    return string;
}