Next Page >

Hide TOC

CFAttributedString Reference

Derived from	CFType Reference
Framework	CoreFoundation/CoreFoundation.h
Declared in	CFAttributedString.h
Companion guides	Property List Programming Topics for Core Foundation Strings Programming Guide for Core Foundation Data Formatting Guide for Core Foundation

Overview

Instances of CFAttributedString manage character strings and associated sets of attributes (for example, font and kerning information) that apply to individual characters or ranges of characters in the string. CFAttributedString as defined in CoreFoundation provides the basic container functionality, while higher levels provide definitions for standard attributes, their values, and additional behaviors involving these. CFAttributedString represents an immutable string—use CFMutableAttributedString to create and manage an attributed string that can be changed after it has been created.

iPhone OS Note: While Core Foundation on iPhone OS contains CFAttributedString, there are no additions to the APIs in UIKit to add specific attributes such as font, style, or color, and there are no APIs to draw attributed strings.

CFAttributedString is not a “subclass” of CFString; that is, it does not respond to CFString function calls. CFAttributedString conceptually contains a CFString to which it applies attributes. This protects you from ambiguities caused by the semantic differences between simple and attributed string.

Attributes are identified by key/value pairs stored in CFDictionary objects. Keys must be CFString objects, while the corresponding values are CFType objects of an appropriate type. See the attribute constants in NSAttributedString Application Kit Additions Reference for standard attribute names.

Important: Attribute dictionaries set for an attributed string must always be created with kCFCopyStringDictionaryKeyCallbacks for their dictionary key callbacks and kCFTypeDictionaryValueCallBacks for their value callbacks; otherwise it's an error.

On Mac OS X, CFAttributedString is “toll-free bridged” with its Cocoa Foundation counterpart, NSAttributedString. This means that the Core Foundation type is interchangeable in function or method calls with the bridged Foundation object. Therefore, in a method where you see an NSAttributedString * parameter, you can pass in a CFAttributedStringRef, and in a function where you see a CFAttributedStringRef parameter, you can pass in an NSAttributedString instance. This also applies to concrete subclasses of NSAttributedString. See Interchangeable Data Types for more information on toll-free bridging.

iPhone OS Note: NSAttributedString is not available on iPhone OS.

Functions by Task

Creating a CFAttributedString

Accessing Attributes

Getting Attributed String Properties

Functions

CFAttributedStringCreate

Creates an attributed string with specified string and attributes.

CFAttributedStringRef CFAttributedStringCreate (
   CFAllocatorRef alloc,
   CFStringRef str,
   CFDictionaryRef attributes
);

Parameters

alloc: The allocator to use to allocate memory for the new attributed string. Pass NULL or kCFAllocatorDefault to use the current default allocator.
str: A string that specifies the characters to use in the new attributed string. This value is copied.
attributes: A dictionary that contains the attributes to apply to the new attributed string. This value is copied.

Return Value

An attributed string that contains the characters from str and the attributes specified by attributes. The result is NULL if there was a problem in creating the attributed string. Ownership follows the Create Rule.

Discussion

Note that both the string and the attributes dictionary are copied. The specified attributes are applied to the whole string. If you want to apply different attributes to different ranges of the string, you should use a mutable attributed string.

Availability

Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later.

Related Sample Code

Declared In

CFAttributedString.h

CFAttributedStringCreateCopy

Creates an immutable copy of an attributed string.

CFAttributedStringRef CFAttributedStringCreateCopy (
   CFAllocatorRef alloc,
   CFAttributedStringRef aStr
);

Parameters

alloc: The allocator to use to allocate memory for the new attributed string. Pass NULL or kCFAllocatorDefault to use the current default allocator.
aStr: The attributed string to copy.

Return Value

An immutable attributed string with characters and attributes identical to those of aStr. Returns NULL if there was a problem copying the object. Ownership follows the Create Rule.

Availability

Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared In

CFAttributedString.h

CFAttributedStringCreateWithSubstring

Creates a sub-attributed string from the specified range.

CFAttributedStringRef CFAttributedStringCreateWithSubstring (
   CFAllocatorRef alloc,
   CFAttributedStringRef aStr,
   CFRange range
);

Parameters

alloc: The allocator to use to allocate memory for the new attributed string. Pass NULL or kCFAllocatorDefault to use the current default allocator.
theString: The attributed string to copy.
range: The range of the attributed string to copy. range must not exceed the bounds of aStr.

Return Value

A new attributed string whose string and attributes are copied from from the specified range of the supplied attributed string. Returns NULL if there was a problem copying the object. Ownership follows the Create Rule.

Availability

Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared In

CFAttributedString.h

CFAttributedStringGetAttribute

Returns the value of a given attribute of an attributed string at a specified location.

CFTypeRef CFAttributedStringGetAttribute (
   CFAttributedStringRef aStr,
   CFIndex loc,
   CFStringRef attrName,
   CFRange *effectiveRange
);

Parameters

str: The attributed string to examine.
loc: The location in str at which to determine the attributes. loc must not exceed the bounds of str.
attrName: The name of the attribute whose value you want to determine.
effectiveRange: If not NULL, upon return contains a range including loc over which exactly the same set of attributes apply as at loc.

Return Value

The value of the specified attribute at the specified location in str. Ownership follows the Get Rule.

Discussion

For performance reasons, a range returned in effectiveRange is not necessarily the maximal range. If you need the maximum range, you should use CFAttributedStringGetAttributeAndLongestEffectiveRange.

Availability

Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared In

CFAttributedString.h

CFAttributedStringGetAttributeAndLongestEffectiveRange

Returns the value of a given attribute of an attributed string at a specified location.

CFTypeRef CFAttributedStringGetAttributeAndLongestEffectiveRange (
   CFAttributedStringRef aStr,
   CFIndex loc,
   CFStringRef attrName,
   CFRange inRange,
   CFRange *longestEffectiveRange
);

Parameters

str: The attributed string to examine.
loc: The location in str at which to determine the attributes. It is a programming error for loc to specify a location outside the bounds of str.
attrName: The name of the attribute whose value you want to determine.
inRange: The range in str within which you want to find the longest effective range of the attributes at loc. inRange must not exceed the bounds of str.
effectiveRange: If not NULL, upon return contains the maximal range within inRange over which the exact same set of attributes apply. The returned range is clipped to inRange.

Return Value

A dictionary that contains the attributes of str at the specified location. Ownership follows the Get Rule.

Availability

Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared In

CFAttributedString.h

CFAttributedStringGetAttributes

Returns the attributes of an attributed string at a specified location.

CFDictionaryRef CFAttributedStringGetAttributes (
   CFAttributedStringRef aStr,
   CFIndex loc,
   CFRange *effectiveRange
);

Parameters

str: The attributed string to examine.
loc: The location in str at which to determine the attributes. loc must not exceed the bounds of str.
effectiveRange: If not NULL, upon return contains a range including loc over which exactly the same set of attributes apply as at loc.

Return Value

A dictionary that contains the attributes of str at the specified location. Ownership follows the Get Rule.

Discussion

Note that the returned attribute dictionary might change in unpredictable ways if the attributed string is edited after this call. If you want to preserve the state of the dictionary, you should make an actual copy of it rather than just retaining it. In addition, you should make no assumptions about the relationship of the actual dictionary returned by this call and the dictionary originally used to set the attributes, other than the fact that the values stored in the dictionaries will be identical (that is, ==) to those originally specified.

Availability

Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared In

CFAttributedString.h

CFAttributedStringGetAttributesAndLongestEffectiveRange

Returns the attributes of an attributed string at a specified location.

CFDictionaryRef CFAttributedStringGetAttributesAndLongestEffectiveRange (
   CFAttributedStringRef aStr,
   CFIndex loc,
   CFRange inRange,
   CFRange *longestEffectiveRange
);

Parameters

str: The attributed string to examine.
loc: The location in str at which to determine the attributes. loc must not exceed the bounds of str.
inRange: The range in str within to find the longest effective range of the attributes at loc. inRange must not exceed the bounds of str.
effectiveRange: If not NULL, upon return contains the maximal range within inRange over which the exact same set of attributes apply. The returned range is clipped to inRange.

Return Value

A dictionary that contains the attributes of str at the specified location. Ownership follows the Get Rule.

Availability

Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared In

CFAttributedString.h

CFAttributedStringGetLength

Returns the length of the attributed string in characters.

CFIndex CFAttributedStringGetLength (
   CFAttributedStringRef aStr
);

Parameters

str: The attributed string to examine.

Return Value

The length of the attributed string in characters; this is the same as CFStringGetLength(CFAttributedStringGetString(aStr)).

Availability

Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later.

Related Sample Code

CoreTextTest

Declared In

CFAttributedString.h

CFAttributedStringGetString

Returns the string for an attributed string.

CFStringRef CFAttributedStringGetString (
   CFAttributedStringRef aStr
);

Parameters

aStr: The attributed string to examine.

Return Value

An immutable string containing the characters from aStr, or NULL if there was a problem creating the object. Ownership follows the Get Rule.

Discussion

For performance reasons, the string returned will often be the backing store of the attributed string, and it might therefore change if the attributed string is edited. However, this is an implementation detail, and you should not rely on this behavior.

Availability

Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared In

CFAttributedString.h

CFAttributedStringGetTypeID

Returns the type identifier for the CFAttributedString opaque type.

CFTypeID CFAttributedStringGetTypeID (
   void
);

Return Value

The type identifier for the CFAttributedString opaque type.

Discussion

CFMutableAttributedString objects have the same type identifier as CFAttributedString objects.

Availability

Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared In

CFAttributedString.h

Data Types

CFAttributedStringRef

A reference to a CFAttributedString object.

typedef const struct __CFAttributedString *CFAttributedStringRef;

Discussion

The CFAttributedStringRef type refers to an object that combines a CFString object with a collection of attributes that specify how the characters in the string should be displayed. CFAttributedString is an opaque type that defines the characteristics and behavior of CFAttributedString objects.

Values of type CFAttributedStringRef may refer to immutable or mutable strings, as CFMutableAttributedString objects respond to all functions intended for immutable CFAttributedString objects. Functions which accept CFAttributedStringRef values, and which need to hold on to the values immutably, should call CFAttributedStringCreateWithSubstring (instead of CFRetain) to do so.

Availability

Available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared In

CFAttributedString.h

Next Page >

Hide TOC

Did this document help you?
Yes: Tell us what works for you. It’s good, but: Report typos, inaccuracies, and so forth. It wasn’t helpful: Tell us what would have helped.