UIPickerView dynamically populate the data from external XML file - iphone

Question

is it possible to populate the UIPickerView data dynamically from external XML file.
For example, I will have TextA, TextB and TextC in my picker view and I have the same in my XML file in remote server. I have successfully developed reading the XML data from remote server and displaying the text (they were title and url) in my tableview. But now I am trying to populate my UIPickerView data from my XML file. The main purpose of this is to dynamically control the UIPickerView data from my XML file.
Is there anyway to make this happen?

Answer 1

You can parse XMl files with NSXMLParser. It's an event driven parser, so you have to set up a delegate to handle all the callbacks and create your arrays and dictionaries from the parsed nodes.
You could also use a class like XMLReader. This allows you to simply pass your xml as an NSData or NSString object and get a parsed NSDictionary. You can then use that to populate the UIPickerView.
It's a bit inconvenient though and it would be a better choice to use .plist files, if you can. Of course that's not an option, if you want to access the same information from other platforms too.
Then, all you would have to do after downloading the file is:
NSArray *onlineList = [plistAsString propertyList];
Or if you download the file onto disk:
NSArray *onlineList = [[NSArray alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:pathToPlistFile];
// release if not using ARC.

Answer 2

I have done the following to display the title and url in one of my apps. I want the same to populate the picker data instead of table cell:
This is a link of one of my apps which demonstrates the implementation of the following code:
urlString = #"http://jeewanaryal.web44.net/iPhoneXML/nepaliMoviesNews.xml";
data = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlString]];
dict = [XMLReader dictionaryForXMLData:data error:nil];
newsItems = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithArray:[[[dict objectForKey:#"list"] objectForKey:#"lists"] objectForKey:#"news"]];
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
CustomCell *cell= [[CustomCell alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 300, 60)];
// Default to no selected style and not selected
cell.selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone;
// Set the image for the cell
[cell setTheImage:[UIImage imageNamed:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"Arrow3.png"]]];
NSMutableArray *temp = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
for (NSDictionary *fruitDict in newsItems) {
//UILabel *songTitle = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(40, 200, 300, 40)];
[temp insertObject:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#",[[fruitDict objectForKey:#"title"] objectForKey:#"text"]]
atIndex:0];
//cell.textLabel.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#",[[fruitDict objectForKey:#"title"] objectForKey:#"text"]];
//[self.view addSubview:songTitle];
}
//NSLog(#"\n\n temp: \n %#",temp);
cell.textLabel.text = [temp objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
cell.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryDisclosureIndicator;
cell.textLabel.font = [UIFont fontWithName:#"Gill Sans" size:20];
cell.textLabel.textColor = [UIColor colorWithRed:102.0/255 green:204.0/255 blue:170.0/255 alpha:1];
//cell.textLabel.textColor =[UIColor colorWithRed:(CGFloat)0.24 green:(CGFloat)0.7 blue:(CGFloat)0.45 alpha:(CGFloat)1];
cell.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];
[[cell textLabel] setTextAlignment:UITextAlignmentLeft];
//cell.textLabel.adjustsFontSizeToFitWidth = YES;
//cell.detailTextLabel.numberOfLines = 2;
return cell;
}