I'm trying to store an NSArray object with a simple key (1,2,3 etc.) inside an NSDictionary. I'm pretty sure thats worked, but I'm not sure how to display the array data thats stored in there, I've got the following working (displaying a single array of data)
The test app i'm working on is a simple dictionary. Definition is the class i've got for words and their definitions, and words is an array which has two values - word and definition
Definition *words = (Definition *)[appDelegate.words objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
It then shows the data in a table view:
[cell.textLabel setText:words.name];
[cell.detailTextLabel setText: words.description];
Not quite sure what you're asking here. You create a Definition instance, so what properties does it have? If you have NSStrings name and description in it, then that code should work fine, but I think you're trying to do something different.
You access information in a NSDictionary by calling objectForKey: or valueForKey:.
You can also store information in the object. If you created your Definition to hold two strings--name and description, you could bypass the NSDictionary all together.
Could you post your Description.h so we can see what's going on?
Related
I see item UISearchBar search two arrays and very much items and not found solution, the problem its similar, have two NSMutablesArrays "subdetail" and "sublista" its show in Cell cell.textLabel and cell.detailTextLabel.
I try UISearchbar but i tray with NSPredicate and not run, try with NSRange and have more errors, i am desperate.PLEASE help me, any comments agree.
This its my code in Search:
- (void)filterContentForSearchText:(NSString*)searchText scope:(NSString*)scope
{
NSMutableDictionary *playas = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:sublista, #"nombre", subdetail, #"localidad", nil];
[alldata addObject:playas];
for(NSDictionary *playas in alldata){
NSString *nombre = [playas objectForKey:#"nombre"];
NSRange nombreRange = [[nombre lowercaseString] rangeOfString:[searchText lowercaseString]];
if(nombreRange.location != NSNotFound)
[filteredList addObject:playas];
}
}
Add rest of code .m and .h
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6217319/BuscarViewController.h
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6217319/BuscarViewController.m
Thanks in advance.
BEST REGARDS
Your code has a lot of issues with it. I don't know which ones are actually breaking it, but any of these issues could be causing severe problems.
First, the code sample you provided doesn't provide declarations for a lot of hte objects you're referencing. No way this could possibly compile as given. If these are properties of the view controller instance, you need to use the accessor methods -- self.alldata or [self alldata], whichever you prefer.
Second, it looks like you're just adding to these properties. If you never reset their contents, every time this method is called, you're going to increase the size of your data set -- looking at your code, possibly recursively.
Third, you try to merge the two datasets together, and then try to search through only one of them. Either don't merge, or search through both seperately and then merge the results. As it is, what you're doing won't work.
Fourth, your table view should really only be displaying one type of data, so you shouldn't need to merge.
Edit:
Based on the code samples you've provided, your entire VC is going to need restructuring. Given how much of your code is written in what appears to be spanish, I'm doing a bit of guesswork at what you're actually doing.
First off, assuming you're using a modern version of xcode, get rid of the #synthesize in the .m file (it's no longer needed anymore). That will cause every single place you're using the actual ivar instead of a proper getter to turn into an error, so you can fix them quickly. iVars will by default use a prefixed underscore of their property name, so you can still access them if you have to -- but only by explicitly accessing the ivar instead of the property.
Second, you should restructure how you handle the data. I don't know where you get your data, but it looks like the various objects are fairly consistent. You should go ahead and either create a new class to hold all the data, or just put them all into a single dictionary. At that point, the 'alldata' property should, in fact, be an array of all valid data. What you should do is then have a filtered list of data (filteredData would be a good name), and you place whatever data matches the search criteria in there. Just remember to either reload the table or update it appropriately as items move into and out of the filtered list.
I want to be able to add objects to an NSArray and access them with Keys. Currently the way im doing it is creating a seperate NSDictionary of key-value pairs where the value is an integer number representing the index in my NSArray. This seems like an extra step to me.
If my understanding of NSDictionary is correct, only 'values' can be stored: a pointer to an object cannot.
Surely there must be an equivalent NSDictionary type function that allows objects to be stored and accessed with a key? I have looked through the documentation, but cant seem to find any answers, unless im missing something obvious.
NSDictionary is to store key value pairs. if you are adding key value pair after you created the dictioanry, use NSMutableDictionary class . example,
[dictionaryObject setObject:#"" forKey:#"abc"];
You can store objects in NSDictionary and can be accessed via keys...
In short, no.
An array (NSArray) is an ordered collection of references to objects, so simply said, an ordered collection of objects.
As opposed to dictionaries, which are unordered and values are accessed by keys.
You understanding of collections is probably wrong, you don't store values, but pointers (references).
The extra step is necessary if you need to store the references in an array, but in this case, you should consider using a dictionary. An option is to use keys that take care of the order.
For example :
[myDictionary objectForKey:#"1"];
could be an equivalent of :
[myArray objectAtIndex:1];
Thats wrong, you can store objects in a NSDictionary. Look at the method dictionaryWithObjects:forKeys: or dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
I have no experience in Cocoa but looking at the documentation it seems like NSDictionary (or at least NSMutableDictionary) should handle your request (without you using NSArray).
I think I understand your problem. My suggestion for you is to use NSMutableArray and macros, like:
NSMutableArray *array=[[NSMutableArray alloc]init];
#define SOME_MACRO 0
id someObject;
[array insertObject:someObject atIndex:SOME_MACRO];
id getterObject=[array objectAtIndex:SOME_MACRO];
Of course define the macros in the header file.
I have a Class for handling my data in my project, and now I need to store the data.
I'd like to use a Plist but I'm a bit unsure of how to start.
My class is pretty simple - 6 pieces of data, flat (no hierarchy).
I want my app to start with no data, so can I assume that I should create the PList programmatically once the User creates their first piece of data? (That is, don't create a .plist file in 'Supporting Files' prior to distribution?)
Then, when the app starts the next time, read the data and create an NSMUtableArray array of Class instances?
To create a property list, all you need to do is use appropriate types (i.e. those that support the property list format: NSData, NSString, NSDictionary, NSNumber, NSDate, NSArray), store them in a single container, and tell the containing object to write itself to a file. To read the data, you can initialize that same type using a path. For example:
// writing some data to a property list
NSString *somePath = ... // replace ... with the path where you want to store the plist file
NSMutableDictionary myDict = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
[myDict setObject:#"Caleb" forKey:#"name"];
[myDict setObject:[NSNumber numberWithInt:240] forKey:#"cholesterolOrIQ"];
[myDict writeToFile:somePath atomically:YES];
// reading the file again
NSDictionary *readDict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:somePath];
The simplest way is to simple save an NSArray or NSDictionary to disk. Caleb's answer goes into detail there so I won't repeat it, other than to say you might have to convert a non-compatible object like NSColor to an property list object like NSData. It's up to you to do this each time you save or load your data.
NSKeyedArchiver and NSKeyedUnarchiver give you a little more control over the process, but work pretty much the same way. You provide (or get back) a plist compatible root object (usually an NSDictionary) that contains your data. I recommend creating a dictionary that includes your data structure as well as an arbitrary number (your app's build number is a good choice) to use as a version indicator. This way if you ever update your data model you can easily determine if you need to do anything to convert it to the new version.
If you're putting your own objects into the data file, look into NSCoding. The protocol gives you two methods using NSKeyedArchiver and NSKeyedUnarchiver to save and restore your data. This is by far the most straightforward approach if your data model consists of anything more than a few simple strings and numbers, since you're dealing with your own native objects. In your case, you would have your data class implement NSCoding and use the NSKeyedArchiver and NSKeyedUnarchiver methods to encode your six instance variables. When it's time to save or load, pack the instance of your class into an NSDictionary (along with a versioning number as I mentioned above) and call NSKeyedArchiver's archiveRootObject:toFile:. Your save an load methods deal only with your own data object, which makes things easy for you. The common pitfall to watch out for here is if your custom data object contains other custom object. This is fine, but you have to make sure every object that's going to be saved has its own NSCoding implementation.
Two things you can do:
Use NSUserDefaults:
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSUserDefaults_Class/Reference/Reference.html
The objectForKey method is the one you want to use to store your class. But, as pointed out in the comments, this shouldn't really be used for storing lots of user data; it's best for saving preferences.
For storing more data, you might want to look at Core Data. It's more complex, but should be better suited to your needs. Here's a tutorial on it:
http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/iphone/iphone-core-data/
Neither of these seems best for your simple application, but I leave this answer up since it gives alternatives for saving data to the iPhone.
I'm developing an iPad App and need some help.
Through a button within my App I want to create one object at a time.
So every time the button is touched one object should be created.
The problem I have is: I want to assign each object a dynamic name to identify this object.
This would be something like: form0, form1, form2, ..., formN.
This Name corresponds to an instance variable within every object.
So the form1 instance has a number attribute which is 1.
But how do I assign this form1, form2, etc. to a new instance?
I tried to initialize a new instance with the return of a method which creates the formX-String:
-(NSString*)giveMeName{
NSString* simpleName = #"form";
NSString* newName = [simpleName stringByAppendingString:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%d", questionCounter]];
return newName;
}
where questionCounter is a variable which holds the int identifier for both formX and the instance number attribute.
But when I want to initialize a new instance with this function as name it's not working:
TSForm* [self giveMeName] = [[TSForm alloc] initWithInt:questionCounter headline:headlineText intro:introText];
Obviously I got something wrong with the inner working of Objective-C.
Please help me out.
what you're trying to do isn't really possible. One way that you could achieve the affect you're looking for is using an NSDictionary. For every TSForm object you create, you add that object to the dictionary with the key of the giveMeName return value.
So you start by creating your dictionary:
NSMutableDictionary *formDict = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
Then, every time you create an object, add it to the dictionary:
id *newTSForm = [[TSForm alloc] init]; // Or however you create a TSForm
[formDict setObject:newTSForm forKey:[newTSForm giveMeName]];
Then when you want to pull out the form you're looking for, you just ask the dictionary based on the name you provided:
[formDict valueForKey:nameOfForm]; // nameOfForm is the name provided by giveMeName
Hope this helps!
use NSMutableArray and keep adding your items there.
Even if what you are trying to do is technically possible, that's using tricsk in low-level objective-C runtime and KVC stuff and so on for nothing.
Using a simple NSMutableArray to keep track of all you instances (and using the index in the array to know which form you are dealing with) is the way to go.
I don't think you really need your unique identifier stuff for that (if so, you are probably thinking about your project the wrong way), as long as you have a way in your code to differentiate each form and manipulate them (the first form created will then be at index 0, the second at index 1… of your NSMutableDictionary)
If you really need this special unique identifier anyway for some strange reason, you can still use an NSMutableDictionary and use the unique identifier as your key of your dict and the form as the associated value. But you should probably think twice about your architecture ad the real need for this before, as it seems quite strange app architecture/design to do so based on your description of your needs in your question.
What you are looking for is some kind of variable variable, which don't really exist in objective-C.
This question (Objective C Equivalent of PHP's “Variable Variables”) has some different suggestions for getting similar results.
the code below is working, but I want to make sure it's correct. I'm nervous about having an empty Array inside my dictionary that I create from the plist, since typically it seems that if you don't, say, initWithCapacity:1 then you often get memory errors once you start trying to add items.
At least, that's been my experience with NSMutableDictionary. However, this is the first time I'm trying to implement nested data objects, so perhaps the reason this code works is that the nested array is automatically initialized when it's imported as part of its parent dictionary?
Any and all comments appreciated. Thanks.
First, here's what the plist looks like that I'm using to create my dictionary:
Next, here's my code where I'm using the plist to create a dictionary, then adding an item to dataArray
// Create a pointer to a dictionary
NSMutableDictionary *dictionary;
// Read "SomeData.plist" from application bundle
NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath];
NSString *finalPath = [path stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"SomeData.plist"];
dictionary = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:finalPath];
// Now let's see if we can successfully add an item to the end of this empty nested array. How 'bout the number 23
NSNumber *yetAnotherNumber = [NSNumber numberWithInt:23];
[[dictionary objectForKey:#"dataArray"] addObject:yetAnotherNumber];
// Dump the contents of the dictionary to the console
NSLog(#"%#", dictionary);
Okay, fine, simple, good. When I Log the dictionary contents it shows that "23" has been added as an array value to dataArray. So the code works. But again, I want to confirm that I'm not "getting lucky" here, with my code just happening to work even though I'm not properly initializing that nested array. If so, then I could run into unanticipated errors later on.
So to sum up, dataArray is an empty array inside the .plist, so do I need to initialize it somehow (using, for example initWithCapacity: or something else) before I can properly populate it, or is the way I'm coding here just fine?
Thanks again.
EDIT
Hey all. I've been doing continued research on this, in the interests of finding a satisfying answer. I think I may have stumbled upon something, via this link on deep copying. His previous posts on deep copying had presented some code to do essentially what I was looking for above: create a mutable copy of a dictionary or array, from a plist, that also has mutable sub-structures.
However, as mentioned in the link above, it looks like these methods were superfluous, due to the CFPropertyListCreateDeepCopy method, which can be invoked with a call such as
testData = CFPropertyListCreateDeepCopy(kCFAllocatorDefault, [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:path], kCFPropertyListMutableContainersAndLeaves);
So, my question is, can I properly use CFPropertyListCreateDeepCopy, in the way shown, to achieve what I've been asking about here? In other words, can I use this method to import my dictionary from a plist with fully mutable, nested data objects?
As I mentioned in one of the comments, I know I can create a nested, mutable dictionary manually, but for complex data that's just not practical, and it seems unlikely that built-in methods to import a mutable plist don't exist. So, based on the above, it looks like I've possibly found the solution, but I'm still too new to this to be able to say for sure. Please advise.
(Side note: I would simply test the code, but as we've established, the current SDK is buggy with regard to allow you to edit immutable nested dictionaries, contrary to the documented behavior. So as before, I'm not just interested in whether this works, but whether it's correct)
Thanks in advance.
init... methods should only be called once, immediately after a call to alloc or allocWithZone:. When framework code creates and returns an object or graph of objects, their init... methods have already been called, so sending another init... message would have undefined results. Don't do that.
Interestingly, in spite of what the documentation appears to say (and admittedly I probably missed a key sentence or paragraph somewhere), when you create an instance of a mutable collection by reading a plist, any nested collections are also mutable. I ran the following little experiment in a test harness just to be sure:
NSMutableDictionary *pets = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:#"/tmp/Pets.plist"];
NSMutableArray *cats = [pets objectForKey:#"cats"];
[cats addObject:#"Foo"]; // EDIT: Added line I accidentally omitted earlier
NSLog(#"%#", cats);
So again, the nested collections created when you read in the plist are fully initialized, and mutable to boot, so you can simply use them, as you've been doing.
EDIT
However, after doing some further reading of the docs, I think the OP is right to feel uneasy about relying on what is apparently an undocumented feature of the current version of the SDK. For example, the Property List Programming Guide states:
If you load the property list with
this call:
NSMutableArray * ma = [NSMutableArray arrayWithContentsOfFile:xmlFile];
ma is a mutable array with immutable
dictionaries in each element. Each key
and each value in each dictionary are
immutable.
So, to be on the safe side, if you need a nested collection to be mutable, you should create it yourself. For example, I'd recommend rewriting the code in the example above as follows:
NSMutableDictionary *pets = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:#"/tmp/Pets.plist"];
NSArray *cats = [pets objectForKey:#"cats"];
NSMutableArray *mutableCats = [cats mutableCopy];
[pets setObject:mutableCats forKey:cats];
[mutableCats release];
You can then safely make changes to the nested mutable collection:
[mutableCats addObject:#"Foo"];
Any object in a dictionary which is created by reading from disk will be properly initialized. You will not have to do it on your own. However, as pointed out by jlehr, contents of the dictionary should be immutable. If you want the contents of the dictionary to be mutable, you will need to change them on your own. I have no idea why your program is not throwing an exception.
I do not know why you are getting memory errors while not using initWithCapacity:1 in other situations. The following code is perfectly valid:
NSMutableArray *array = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
[array addObject:#"object1"];
[array addObject:#"object2"];
NSLog(#"%#",array);
[array release];
If you don't specify a capacity, the array won't pre-allocate any memory, but it will allocate memory as required later.
Edit:
It is perfectly acceptable to use NSDictionary with CFPropertyListCreateDeepCopy. In Core Foundation, a CFPropertyList can be a CFDictionary, CFArray, CFNumber, CFString, or CFData. Since NSDictionary is toll-free bridged to CFDictionary, you can use it wherever a CFDictionary is asked for by casting, and vice-versa. Your code as is will give a warning, but you can suppress it by casting the dictionary and return values.
NSDictionary *testData = (NSDictionary*)CFPropertyListCreateDeepCopy(kCFAllocatorDefault, (CFDictionaryRef)[NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:path], kCFPropertyListMutableContainersAndLeaves);