NitroNSDictionaryCategories

NitroNSDictionaryCategories offers parsing and utility categories for iOS NSDictionary type.

Parsing methods try to parse specifc types from dictionary values. If a value cannot be parsed, methods return nil, so there's a kind of type safety. These methods come in two flavors: the ones which handle key as a final value and the ones which handle key as a key path.

Following a key path is a powerful functionality which lets the user traverse nested dictionaries and arrays with a single command. For example, lets say we have this structure:

NSDictionary *backpack = @{ @"items": @[
   // Items 0 - 4
   // ...
   @{
       @"type": @"sword",
       @"name": @"Ultra Lightning Sword of Slashing",
       @"description": @"It slashes and shocks!",
       @"properties": @[
           @{
               @"name": @"lightning",
               @"bonus-damage": @150
           },
           // Other properties
           // ...
       ]
   },
   // Other items
   // ...
]}

We would parse the lightning bonus damage of Ultra Lightning Sword of Slashing with a single call:

NSNumber *damage = [backpack numberForKeyPath: @"items/5/properties/0/bonus-damage"];

Available parsing methods are:

• boolForKey:: Tries to parse a boolean from the value referenced by key. It supports numeric values and strings.
• stringForKey:: Returns the string representation of the value referenced by key.
• arrayForKey:: Tries to parse an array from the value referenced by key.
• dictionaryForKey:: Tries to parse a dictionary from the value referenced by key.
• numberForKey:: Tries to parse a number from the value referenced by key.
• dateForKey:withFormatter:: Tries to parse a date from the value referenced by key.
• boolForKeyPath:: The same as boolForKey:, but handles key as a key path.
• stringForKeyPath:: The same as stringForKey:, but handles key as a key path.
• arrayForKeyPath:: The same as arrayForKey:, but handles key as a key path.
• dictionaryForKeyPath:: The same as dictionaryForKey:, but handles key as a key path.
• numberForKeyPath:: The same as numberForKey:, but handles key as a key path.
• dateForKeyPath:withFormatter:: The same as dateForKey:withFormatter:, but handles key as a key path.

Utility methods are:

• toPropertyListCompliantDictionary: Recursively creates a new dictionary which is property list compliant.
• hasKey:: Returns if the dictionary contains the specified key.
• keyForObject:: Returns the key of a given object contained in the dictionary.
• getFirstNonNullValueOfKeys:: Searches the dictionary for the first object which is not nil and not equal to NSNull.

Requirements

iOS 4.3 or higher, ARC only

Installation

NitroNSDictionaryCategories is available through CocoaPods, to install it simply add the following line to your Podfile:

pod "NitroNSDictionaryCategories"

NitroNSDictionaryCategories adds the -ObjC linker flag to targets using it. Without it, categories code would be stripped out, resulting in linker errors. For more info about categories inside static libraries, see: Building Objective-C static libraries with categories

Author

• Daniel L. Alves (@alveslopesdan)

License

NitroNSDictionaryCategories is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.