Get just the scaling transformation out of CGAffineTransform

- (CGFloat)xscale {
    CGAffineTransform t = self.transform;
    return sqrt(t.a * t.a + t.c * t.c);
}

- (CGFloat)yscale {
    CGAffineTransform t = self.transform;
    return sqrt(t.b * t.b + t.d * t.d);
}

That is an old question, but I still add more information in case someone needs.

For me, the good answer and sample code for getting scale, rotation of transformation and for reproducing it are from article:

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1951182

Assuming that the transformation is a scaling followed by a rotation (possibly with a translation in there, but no skewing) the horizontal scale factor is sqrt(a^2+c^2), the vertical scale factor is sqrt(b^2+d^2), and the ratio of the horizontal scale factor to the vertical scale factor should be a/d = -c/b, where a, b, c, and d are four of the six members of the CGAffineTransform, per the documentation (tx and ty only represent translation, which does not affect the scale factors).

|  a  b 0 |
|  c  d 0 |
| tx ty 1 |