CFStringGetLength

CFStringGetLength is a function within the Core Foundation framework in Apple's operating systems. It is used to retrieve the number of characters in a given CFString object. The function takes a single argument, which is a pointer to the CFString whose length is to be determined. It returns an integer representing the count of characters in the string.

This function is fundamental for many string manipulation tasks. For instance, knowing the length of a string is often a prerequisite for iterating through its characters, extracting substrings, or performing memory allocation based on its size. CFStringGetLength handles Unicode characters correctly, meaning it returns the count of UTF-16 code units, which is the internal representation of CFString.

The return value of CFStringGetLength is of type CFIndex, which is an integer type guaranteed to be large enough to hold any valid index or size within the system's memory addressing capabilities. This ensures that the function can accurately report the length of even very long strings. When working with CFString objects, checking their length using this function is a common and straightforward operation. It is important to note that CFStringGetLength does not account for null terminators that might be present in C-style strings, as CFString itself manages its length internally.