Remove all but numbers from NSString

The accepted answer is overkill for what is being asked. This is much simpler:

NSString *pureNumbers = [[phoneNumberString componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:[[NSCharacterSet decimalDigitCharacterSet] invertedSet]] componentsJoinedByString:@""];

There's no need to use a regular expressions library as the other answers suggest -- the class you're after is called NSScanner. It's used as follows:

NSString *originalString = @"(123) 123123 abc";
NSMutableString *strippedString = [NSMutableString 
        stringWithCapacity:originalString.length];

NSScanner *scanner = [NSScanner scannerWithString:originalString];
NSCharacterSet *numbers = [NSCharacterSet 
        characterSetWithCharactersInString:@"0123456789"];

while ([scanner isAtEnd] == NO) {
  NSString *buffer;
  if ([scanner scanCharactersFromSet:numbers intoString:&buffer]) {
    [strippedString appendString:buffer];

  } else {
    [scanner setScanLocation:([scanner scanLocation] + 1)];
  }
}

NSLog(@"%@", strippedString); // "123123123"

EDIT: I've updated the code because the original was written off the top of my head and I figured it would be enough to point the people in the right direction. It seems that people are after code they can just copy-paste straight into their application.

I also agree that Michael Pelz-Sherman's solution is more appropriate than using NSScanner, so you might want to take a look at that.

Old question, but how about:

  NSString *newString = [[origString componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:
                [[NSCharacterSet decimalDigitCharacterSet] invertedSet]] 
                componentsJoinedByString:@""];

It explodes the source string on the set of non-digits, then reassembles them using an empty string separator. Not as efficient as picking through characters, but much more compact in code.