NSMutableArray populated but data lost somehow - iphone

Question

I start process of getting data from viewDidLoad and populate NSMutableArray with that data. But when I want to populate UIPicker I cant because there is no more data in that array. How did I lost that??? Please help :(
#synthesize activityIndicator;
#synthesize pckCountries;
// Implement viewDidLoad to do additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.
- (void)viewDidLoad {
countriesList = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:20];
[self getCountriesList];
NSLog(#"%#", [countriesList count]);
[super viewDidLoad];
}
- (void)dealloc {
[activityIndicator release];
[xmlParser release];
//[soapResults release];
[super dealloc];
}
- (void) getCountriesList{
NSString *soapMsg =
[NSString stringWithFormat:
#"<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?>"
"<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance\" xmlns:xsd=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema\" xmlns:soap=\"http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/\">"
"<soap:Body>"
"<getCountries xmlns=\"http://www.smsbug.com/api/\" />"
"</soap:Body>"
"</soap:Envelope>"
];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:
#"http://www.smsbug.com/api/webservice.asmx"];
NSMutableURLRequest *req = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url];
NSString *msgLength = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%d", [soapMsg length]];
[req addValue:#"text/xml; charset=utf-8"
forHTTPHeaderField:#"Content-Type"];
[req addValue:#"http://www.smsbug.com/api/getCountries"
forHTTPHeaderField:#"SOAPAction"];
[req addValue:msgLength forHTTPHeaderField:#"Content-Length"];
[req setHTTPMethod:#"POST"];
[req setHTTPBody: [soapMsg dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
conn = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:req delegate:self];
if (conn) {
webData = [[NSMutableData data] retain];
}
}
-(void) connection:(NSURLConnection *) connection
didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *) response {
[webData setLength: 0];
}
-(void) connection:(NSURLConnection *) connection
didReceiveData:(NSData *) data {
[webData appendData:data];
NSLog(#"%#", webData);
}
-(void) connection:(NSURLConnection *) connection
didFailWithError:(NSError *) error {
[webData release];
[connection release];
}
-(void) connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *) connection {
NSLog(#"DONE READING WEATHER WEB SERVICE. Received Bytes: %d", [webData length]);
NSString *theXML = [[NSString alloc]
initWithBytes: [webData mutableBytes]
length:[webData length]
encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
//---shows the XML to test---
NSLog(theXML);
[theXML release];
// stop activity indicator animation
[activityIndicator stopAnimating];
//-----------------------------------------------------------------
// start parsing received XML message
//-----------------------------------------------------------------
if (xmlParser)
{
[xmlParser release];
}
xmlParser = [[NSXMLParser alloc] initWithData: webData];
[xmlParser setDelegate:self];
[xmlParser setShouldResolveExternalEntities:YES];
[xmlParser parse];
// clear memory
[connection release];
[webData release];
}
-(void) parser:(NSXMLParser *) parser
didStartElement:(NSString *) elementName
namespaceURI:(NSString *) namespaceURI
qualifiedName:(NSString *) qName
attributes:(NSDictionary *) attributeDict {
//NSLog(elementName);
if ([elementName isEqualToString:#"Country_Name"])
{
countryFound = YES;
}
}
-(void)parser:(NSXMLParser *) parser foundCharacters:(NSString *)string
{
if([string isEqualToString:#"Data Not Found"])
{
errorOccured = YES;
}
else if(countryFound == YES)
{
//NSLog(string);
[countriesList addObject:string];
}
else
{
[soapResults appendString: string];
}
}
-(void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser
didEndElement:(NSString *)elementName
namespaceURI:(NSString *)namespaceURI
qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName
{
if(errorOccured == YES)
{
UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc]
initWithTitle:#"No Data!"
message:#"Sorry"
delegate:self
cancelButtonTitle:#"OK"
otherButtonTitles:nil];
[alert show];
[alert release];
[soapResults setString:#""];
errorOccured = FALSE;
}
else
{
if ([elementName isEqualToString:#"Country_Name"])
{
countryFound = FALSE;
}
}
}
- (NSInteger)numberOfComponentsInPickerView:(UIPickerView *)pickerView{
return 1;
}
- (NSInteger)pickerView:(UIPickerView *)pickerView numberOfRowsInComponent:(NSInteger)component{
return countriesList.count;
}
- (NSString *)pickerView:(UIPickerView *)pickerView titleForRow:(NSInteger)row forComponent:(NSInteger)component{
return [countriesList objectAtIndex:row];
}

Answer 1

[super viewDidLoad] should be the first invocation in a viewDidLoad method.
There's a leak - you should invoke [countriesList release] in a dealloc method.
NSURLRequest is asynchronous. As well as NSXMLParser. So all picker delegate methods will be called before downloading/parsing is finished. Thus, in all delegate methods you should check if countriesList is equal to nil.
When parsing is finished (implement parserDidEndDocument: method to receive this message) you should explicitly call [picker reloadAllComponents].