27

If I have a UIViewController subclass, how can I get the class name as string? I've tried doing [vc class], but this returns a Class object, not an NSString.

jscs
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xonegirlz
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  • possible duplicate of [How do I print the type or class of a variable in Swift?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24006165/how-do-i-print-the-type-or-class-of-a-variable-in-swift) – Jeehut Dec 18 '14 at 16:31

4 Answers4

49

NSStringFromClass

Returns the name of a class as a string.

NSString * NSStringFromClass (  
    Class aClass  
);
Community
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jscs
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  • If ending up here from google and actually want the SWIFT 3 answer, use eg: `String(describing: MyViewController.self)` : https://stackoverflow.com/a/34878224/1736679 – Efren May 29 '17 at 03:35
20

You can do something like this

NSString *strClass = NSStringFromClass([viewController class]);
Vaibhav Saran
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Hardik Darji
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4

Use the function:

const char * class_getName(Class cls)

as 

class_getName ([vc class]);
GoZoner
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  • how do I cast from char* to NSString? – xonegirlz Jun 04 '12 at 23:09
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    you don't cast from char* to NSString. You have to create a string from bytes using a call like initWithBytes:length:encoding:. You'd probably use use the encoding NSASCIIStringEncoding. See the other poster's message about NSStringFromClass. That's much easier to use than the Objective C runtime function class_getName(). – Duncan C Jun 05 '12 at 00:19
  • `class_getName()` is the runtime function that NSStringFromClass would use under the hood. – Ephemera Dec 18 '14 at 00:14
4

you can do some thing like the following when you instantiate your object:

[[NSClassFromString(@"className1") alloc] init];
shebelaw
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    xonegirlz asked how to get an NSString from a class, and your answer gets an instance of a class from an NSString (i.e. you gave the reverse of the answer). – Harpastum Mar 14 '13 at 16:45