How to unwrap optional NSDictionary - swift

I cannot unwrap an optional NSDictionary. I am using NSDictionary because that is what I am returned when loading a plist from a file path.
var dict: NSDictionary? = NSDictionary(contentsOfFile: getFontPath())
assert(dict != nil, "Top level dictionary from plist can't be nil")
var fontArray = dict!objectForKey("fonts") as [NSDictionary]
The compiler is not recognizing dict! as an unwrap - tells me I should separate sequences by a ;
What is the problem and solution?

You're missing the attribute accessor (ie, the dot) after the exclamation point:
var fontArray = dict!.objectForKey("fonts") as [NSDictionary]
^
Depending on what you're doing, it might make more sense to use if let, eg:
if let unwrappedDict = dict as? NSDictionary {
}

Related

Swift JSON to Dictionary<String: Any>. Then cast "Any" as NSMutableArray

I am trying to read from a JSON String and draw a graph with its data:
{"y-axis-data":{"min":0.0,"max":1000,"Step":100.0},"x-labels":[1994,2000,2005],"y-values":[20,305,143]}
I wrote a function to create a dictionary from the string:
func jsonToDictionary(jsonString: String) -> [String: Any]? {
if let jsonData: Data = jsonString.data(using: String.Encoding.utf8) {
do {
return try (JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: jsonData, options: []) as? [String: Any])!
} catch {
some bla bla
}
}
return nil
}
The return dictionary should count 3 elements inside when I pass my JSON string, and it does.
I can then change of some variables (Double) which are 0 until now and give them the values of min max and Step from the "y-axis-data" key of my dictionary, using {"min":0.0,"max":1000,"Step":100.0} as a dictionary it self. Works fine.
My trouble comes when trying to initialize other atributes:
self.my_view!.x-labels = (jsonToDictionary!["x-labels"]) as? NSMutableArray
my_view has already been initialized as UIViewCustomClass(frame: someFrame)
myview.x-labels is an NSMutableArray and it is initialized as nil. After executing that line of code it is still nill, of course myview.x-labels.count is nil. if I do it this way:
self.my_view!.x-labels = (jsonToDictionary!["x-labels"]) as! NSMutableArray
I get a warning :
Treating a forced downcast to NSMutableArray as optional will never produce nil.
It then crashes on runtime with this error:
Could not cast value of type '__NSArrayI' (0x110ed5448) to 'NSMutableArray' (0x110ed4598).
of course the exact same thing happens with "y-values"
What is the right way to do this?
It was because your json!["x-labels"] is implicitly treated as NSArray, so you somehow had to do a "double-force-cast"
// get the converted json
let j = jsonToDictionary(jsonString: dict)
// double cast
let m = (j!["x-labels"] as! NSArray).mutableCopy() as! NSMutableArray
Result:
I think, JSONSerialization class converts into Array, and then Swift cannot cast Array to NSMutableArray. You can do this (Swift4):
let array = (jsonToDictionary!["x-labels"]) as? [Int]
if array != nil {
self.my_view!.x-labels = NSMutableArray(array: array!)
}

Using Guard in an Init?

Everything works swimmingly except for when I do a random string like "fds", how would I correctly and efficiently use a guard to protect from this sort of error?
init(weatherData: [String: AnyObject]) {
city = weatherData["name"] as! String
let weatherDict = weatherData["weather"]![0] as! [String: AnyObject]
description = weatherDict["description"] as! String
icon = weatherDict["icon"] as! String
let mainDict = weatherData["main"] as! [String: AnyObject]
currentTemp = mainDict["temp"] as! Double
humidity = mainDict["humidity"] as! Int
let windDict = weatherData["wind"] as! [String: AnyObject]
windSpeed = windDict["speed"] as! Double
}
how would I correctly and efficiently use a guard to protect from this sort of error?
Why would you want to? If the caller does not hand you a dictionary whose "name" key is present and is a string, you are dead in the water because you cannot initialize city. You want to crash.
If you would like to escape from this situation without actually crashing, then make this a failable initializer and fail (return nil) if the dictionary doesn't contain the needed data. This effectively pushes the danger of crashing onto the caller, because the result will be an Optional that might be nil, and the caller must check for that.
init?(weatherData: [String: AnyObject]) {
guard let city = weatherData["name"] as? String else {return nil}
self.city = city
// ... and so on ...
}
But what I would do is none of those things. I would rewrite the initializer as init(city:description:icon:currentTemp:humidity:windSpeed:) and force the caller to parse the dictionary into the needed data. That way, if the data is not there, we don't even try to initialize this class in the first place. My argument would be that it is the caller's job to parse the dictionary; this class should have no knowledge of the structure of some complex dictionary pulled off the Internet (or whatever the source is).

How do I convert NSDictionary to Dictionary?

I have already updated to XCode 8 and now I need to convert my code from Swift 2 to Swift 3.
Before, when I want to convert NSDictionary to Dictionary, I just wrote the following:
let post_paramsValue = post_params as? Dictionary<String,AnyObject?>
where post_params is NSDictionary.
But now with Swift 3, I am receiving this error:
NSDictionary is not convertible to Dictionary
Why? What's changed?
Edit 1
I've also tried the following:
let post_paramsValue = post_params as Dictionary<String,Any>
But that gives this error:
Edit 2
I've also tried the following:
let post_paramsValue = post_params as Dictionary<String,Any>
Where I declare NSDictionary instead of NSDictionary!, but it doesn't work; I got this error:
Edit 3
I've also tried the following:
let post_paramsValue = post_params as Dictionary<String,Any>!
But I received this error:
NSDictionary in Objective-C has always non-optional values.
AnyObject has become Any in Swift 3.
Considering the first two "rules" NSDictionary can be bridge cast to Dictionary
let post_paramsValue = post_params as Dictionary<String,Any>
If the source NSDictionary is an optional you might use as Dictionary<String,Any>? or as? Dictionary<String,Any> or as! Dictionary<String,Any> or as Dictionary<String,Any>! depending on the actual type of the NSDictionary
For those who have a problem with NSDictionary, simply use this extension:
Swift 3.0
extension NSDictionary {
var swiftDictionary: Dictionary<String, Any> {
var swiftDictionary = Dictionary<String, Any>()
for key : Any in self.allKeys {
let stringKey = key as! String
if let keyValue = self.value(forKey: stringKey){
swiftDictionary[stringKey] = keyValue
}
}
return swiftDictionary
}
}
You just need to declare the NSDictionary properly in objc
For example: NSDictionary<NSString *, NSString*> gets translated automatically to [String: String] in swift interfaces

Init has been renamed to init(describing) error in Swift 3

This code works fine in Swift 2:
guard let userData = responseData["UserProfile"] as? [String : AnyObject] else { return }
var userProfileFieldsDict = [String: String]()
if let profileUsername = userData["Username"] as? NSString {
userProfileFieldsDict["username"] = String(profileUsername)
}
if let profileReputationpoints = userData["ReputationPoints"] as? NSNumber {
userProfileFieldsDict["reputation"] = String(profileReputationpoints)
}
But, in Swift 3 it throws an error on userProfileFieldsDict["reputation"] saying
init has been renamed to init(describing:)
My question is why does it trigger on that line and not on the userProfileFieldsDict["username"] assignment line, and how to go about fixing it? I'm assuming it's because I'm casting a NSNumber to a String, but I can't really understand why that matters.
NSNumber is a very generic class. It can be anything from a bool to a long to even a char. So the compiler is really not sure of the exact data type hence it's not able to call the right String constructor.
Instead use the String(describing: ) constructor as shown below
userProfileFieldsDict["reputation"] = String(describing: profileReputationpoints)
Here's more info about it.
You need to drop your use of Objective-C types. This was always a bad habit, and now the chickens have come home to roost. Don't cast to NSString and NSNumber. Cast to String and to the actual numeric type. Example:
if let profileUsername = userData["Username"] as? String {
userProfileFieldsDict["username"] = profileUsername
}
if let profileReputationpoints = userData["ReputationPoints"] as? Int { // or whatever
userProfileFieldsDict["reputation"] = String(profileReputationpoints)
}

CFDictionary won't bridge to NSDictionary (Swift 2.0 / iOS9)

OK, this is a case I came across when working with CGImageSource and noticed that the toll-free-bridging between CFDictionary and NSDictionary seems to run into problems in certain cases. I've managed to construct the below example to show what I mean:
func optionalProblemDictionary() -> CFDictionary? {
let key = "key"
let value = "value"
var keyCallBacks = CFDictionaryKeyCallBacks()
var valueCallBacks = CFDictionaryValueCallBacks()
let cfDictionary = CFDictionaryCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault, UnsafeMutablePointer(unsafeAddressOf(key)), UnsafeMutablePointer(unsafeAddressOf(value)), 1, &keyCallBacks, &valueCallBacks)
return cfDictionary
}
Fairly straightforward (and a bit silly) but its a function returning and optional CFDictionary. The "fun" starts when trying to create an NSDictionary from this function:
Why won't the following work?
if let problemDictionary = optionalProblemDictionary() as? NSDictionary {
print(problemDictionary) // never enters, no warnings, compiles just fine
}
While this works fine?
if let cfDictionary = optionalProblemDictionary() {
let problemDictionary = cfDictionary as NSDictionary
print(problemDictionary)
}
XCode 7.0 (7A220)
The reason seems to be that the function returns an optional
CFDictionary? and that can not be cast to a (non-optional)
NSDictionary.
Here is a simpler example demonstrating the same problem with CFString vs NSString:
let cfString = "foobar" as CFString?
if let s1 = cfString as? NSString {
print("s1 = \(s1)") // not executed
}
(The question remains why this does not give a compiler error or
at least a compiler warning because this optional cast can
never succeed.)
But a casting to an optional NSString? works:
if let s2 = cfString as NSString? {
print("s2 = \(s2)") // prints "s2 = foobar"
}
In your case, if you change the "problematic case" to
if let problemDictionary = cfDict as NSDictionary? {
print(problemDictionary)
}
then the if-block is executed.
Note that your method to build a CFDictionary in Swift is not correct
and actually caused program crashes in my test. One reason is that
the dictionary callbacks are set to empty structures.
Another problem is that unsafeAddressOf(key) bridges the Swift
string to an NSString which can be deallocated immediately.
I don't know what the best method is to build a CFDictionary in Swift,
but this worked in my test:
func optionalProblemDictionary() -> CFDictionary? {
let key = "key" as NSString
let value = "value" as NSString
var keys = [ unsafeAddressOf(key) ]
var values = [ unsafeAddressOf(value) ]
var keyCallBacks = kCFTypeDictionaryKeyCallBacks
var valueCallBacks = kCFTypeDictionaryValueCallBacks
let cfDictionary = CFDictionaryCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault, &keys, &values, 1, &keyCallBacks, &valueCallBacks)
return cfDictionary
}