How to get ordered values from an unordered NSDictionary - iphone

Question

I am trying to fetch and display contents from table.Currently i am running a query and store those id, and category name using NSMutableDictionary which works fine.
But I face one issue when i store the contents into NSMutableDictionary the order gets changed.When searching for this issue , it seems that this is the default behavior of the NSMutableDictionary.
I am not sure and how to use and what use to store the key pair value.
Please advice me that how can i overcome this problem
Thanks for stopping by...
//====================================================================
- ( NSMutableDictionary * ) getDataToDisplayTierOne:(NSString*)dbPath{
//====================================================================
NSMutableDictionary *aTierOneTemplateData = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc]init];
if (sqlite3_open([dbPath UTF8String], &database) == SQLITE_OK)
{
const char *sql_query_stmt = "select * from main_categories";
sqlite3_stmt *selectstmt;
if(sqlite3_prepare_v2(database, sql_query_stmt, -1, &selectstmt, NULL) == SQLITE_OK)
{
while(sqlite3_step(selectstmt) == SQLITE_ROW)
{
NSString *aValue = [[NSString alloc] initWithUTF8String:
(const char *) sqlite3_column_text(selectstmt, 1)];
NSString *aId = [[NSString alloc] initWithUTF8String:
(const char *) sqlite3_column_text(selectstmt, 0)];
[aTierOneTemplateData setObject:aId forKey:aValue];
[aValue release];
[aId release];
}
}
sqlite3_finalize(selectstmt);
}
sqlite3_close(database);
return aTierOneTemplateData;
}
Note : - I understand the limitations on using the nsmutabledictionery
so i expecting your advice to that how can i overcome / fetch id,
value in other way.please suggest
Updated
For example
Apple 1
Orange 2
Papaya 3
Actually i want that list to display it on my uitableview
Apple
Orange
Papaya
When tapping on each cell , i want to have its id value
for instance , i tap on Orange , now i want to have that id value as 2
Can you please tell me how to iterate over array of dictionery

Answer 1

Use NSMutableArray instead of NSMutableDictionary.
Change the declaration
NSMutableDictionary *aTierOneTemplateData = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc]init];
to
NSMutableArray *aTierOneTemplateList = [[NSMutableArray alloc]init];
And add the abjects to the array,
[aTierOneTemplateList addObject:aId];
And return the NSMutableArray,
return aTierOneTemplateList;
Edit:
If you modify the while loop as follows, you will get array of NSDictionarys with the same order.
NSString *aValue = [[NSString alloc] initWithUTF8String:
(const char *) sqlite3_column_text(selectstmt, 1)];
NSString *aId = [[NSString alloc] initWithUTF8String:
(const char *) sqlite3_column_text(selectstmt, 0)];
NSDictionary *dict = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:aValue,#"value",aId,#"key", nil];
[aTierOneTemplateList addObject:dict];
[dict release];
[aValue release];
[aId release];
Edit2:
Consider now in your tableviewcontroller, you have array of NSDictionarys (say aTierOneTemplateList).
In cellForRowAtIndexPath method,
NSDictionary *dict = [aTierOneTemplateList objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
NSString *key = [dict objectForKey:#"key"];
NSString *value = [dict objectForKey:#"value"];
Similarly in didSelectRowAtIndexPath method.

Answer 2

Neither NSDictionary nor NSSet are ordered collections. If you want ordering, use NSArray. If you want to impose ordering, add objects to unordered collections that have their own index attribute.