Here's how I'm generating a set of 1,000 random strings with between 4 and 14 random lowercase characters. Is there a better way?

gistfile1.m

@implementation SomeGenerater

- (NSArray *)generateAThousandRandomStrings
{
    NSMutableArray *strings = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:1000];

    for (int count = 0; count < 1000; count++) {
        int length = arc4random_uniform(10) + 4;
        unichar buf[length];

        for (int idx = 0; idx < length; idx++) {
            buf[idx] = (unichar)('a' + arc4random_uniform(26));
        }
        [strings addObject:[NSString stringWithCharacters:buf length:length]];
    }

    return strings;
}

@end

FWIW here's the array-of-unichar code I tested with:

NSTimeInterval timeBefore = [NSDate timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate];
NSMutableArray *strings = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:1000];

for (NSUInteger count = 0; count < 1000; count++)
{
    NSUInteger length = arc4random_uniform(10) + 4;
    unichar buf[length];

    for (NSUInteger idx = 0; idx < length; idx++)
    {
        buf[idx] = (unichar)('a' + arc4random_uniform(26));
    }

    [strings addObject:[NSString stringWithCharacters:buf length:length]];
}

NSTimeInterval timeAfter = [NSDate timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate];
NSLog(@"time 1: %f", (timeAfter - timeBefore));

@kconner ha! If I was going for speed I might even try to use malloc() instead. :) I'm going for purity more as part of an exercise in readable, idiomatic Objective C. The speed and memory concerns didn't matter. I just didn't want to bog down the reader of the example with extra stuff.

@aglee, this is MUCH better! It's just enough C that it won't detract from the larger concept I'm trying to get at. I think I'm going with this.

Shortest solution:

t(a,b) { return arc4random_uniform(a)+b; }

- (NSArray *)generateAThousandStrings
{
    NSMutableString *data = [[NSMutableString alloc] initWithCapacity:1000*15];
    for (int i = 1000, e = t(10,5); i || e; --e || --i)
        [data appendFormat:@"%c", e ? t(26,'a') : (e = t(10,5), '/')];
    return [data componentsSeparatedByString:@"/"];
}

@eraserhd you have proven yourself with this one. :)

@jonathanpenn There, I extracted a function. Shorter now. :)