Open Radar

 
NSString has a bevy of convenience constructors corresponding to most of its -init... methods. One that is conspicuously missing is a wrapper for -[NSString initWithFormat:arguments:], which accepts a va_list as the second argument. This means that anytime I want to create a throwaway string with a va_list, I have to go through the alloc/init/autorelease song and dance. This happens a lot for log statements, and also when integrating with legacy code, which makes the experience all the more aggravating. (I would use +stringWithFormat:, but inside a variadic function I can't really pass the varargs along to someone else without wrapping them in a va_list first.)

This would be a very close cousin to +stringWithFormat: and both are used in the context of variadic functions/methods. I know we always want to keep API simple, but adding this method would be extremely useful when needed, and is very low risk. A related problem requesting this <rdar://problem/6860785> also mentions that GNUstep has this method, and I agree that compatibility would be useful. I've been bitten by the lack of this method several times over the last 2 years, and I'm not the only one who'd like to see this feature, or gets confused at the lack of such a method. See this related Stack Overflow question:  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1420421/