Pairing up two arrays (the zip operation)

This lesson covers pairing two arrays in Objective-C, with the aim of handling related data together.

Combining two corresponding arrays — one of names, one of scores — element by element is called a zip. Objective-C has no dedicated method, so you combine them one at a time in a for loop.

The sample code uses a shared index with for (NSInteger i = 0; i < names.count; i++) and displays names[i] alongside scores[i] with NSLog(). Reaching both with the same index is the basic idea.

A common early stumble is what to do when the two arrays have different lengths. That is something you have to decide and implement yourself.

In professional work, this idea is applied constantly when several related pieces of data have to be processed together.

📖 Reference code

NSArray *names = @[@"Alice", @"Bob", @"Charlie"];
NSArray *scores = @[@88, @95, @72];

for (NSInteger i = 0; i < names.count; i++) {
    NSLog(@"(%@, %@)", names[i], scores[i]);
}

✍️ Your code

Type your code, then press "Run"

🧪 This site can't compile or run Objective-C directly, so it checks on the spot whether what you typed matches the reference code (scoring happens entirely in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere).