Question

How can I get my object index? I have a dictionary containing arrays and inside the arrays i have multiple dictionary.

My data structure(eg):

Student —— NSDictionary

   Item 0 ------ NSArray<br>
          Name ----- Grace<br>
          Age ----- 20<br>
   Item 1 ------ NSArray<br>
          Name ----- Anne<br>
          Age ----- 21<br>             

So for example, I have the value of the name, Grace, and I want to get the value of the object index array (in this case, item 0). How can I do so?

I’ve used the indexOfObject however the results I got back is 2147483647, which i think it means nsnotfound. So i think it doesnt work for this case.

This are my codes:

NSMutableDictionary* namevalue = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];    
namevalue = [somedict objectForKey:@"Name"];              
int arryindex;
arryindex = [somearray indexOfObject:namevalue];                
NSLog(@"Array Index:%i", arryindex);

Can anyone help? Thank you so much!

Answer 1

If I understood correctly, you’re looking for a way to find object index in NSDictionary based on the value of property that object has, right?
E.g. your students dictionary has a student with name Grace and you would like to know at which index the student object with name Grace is stored…

If above is true, here’s my (incomplete and rough) solution which works only for objects with NSString properties, but once you get the idea below, I think you’ll be able to modify code to match your needs.

- (NSInteger)indexOfObjectWithPropertyValue:(id)value inDictionary:(NSDictionary *)dict {
    NSInteger objectIndex = 0;
    unsigned int outCount, i;

    for (id key in dict) {
        id objForKey = [dict objectForKey:key];
        Class lender = [objForKey class];

        objc_property_t *properties = class_copyPropertyList(lender, &outCount);

        for (i = 0; i < outCount; i++) {
            objc_property_t property = properties[i];
            id v = [objForKey valueForKey:[NSString stringWithCString:property_getName(property) encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];

            if ([v isKindOfClass:[value class]] && [v isEqual:value]) {
                return objectIndex; 
            }
        }
        objectIndex++;
    }

    return NSNotFound; // i.e. NSIntegerMax
}

and don’t forget to include runtime header:

#import <objc/runtime.h>

My code may and probably have some issues:

• the most obvious isEqual: method which needs to compare properties’ values.
• above code does not cover a situation when there are many objects with same value (like many students with the same name!)
• ???

I hope my “answer” will make it easier for you to implement what you need.