Question

I created a plist and the structure looks like:

Root - NSDictionary
  firstName - NSArray
  lastName - NSArray

I’m not sure how I access this data after I get the dictionary. When I log the contents of my dictionary, like so

NSDictionary *presetsDict = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:plistPath];
self.presetsDictionary = presetsDict;
for (NSString *key in self.presetsDictionary) {
    NSLog(@"key:%@, object:%@", key, [self.presetsDictionary objectForKey:key]);

I get

key:Root, object: {
lastName = (my lastName array, , , , ) // filled with the contents of my plist
firstName - (my firstName array, , , ,)

I was under the assumption that I would be able to get the lastName array and firstName array with something like

NSArray *fArray = [self.presetsDictionary objectForKey:@"firstName"];

But that returns nil. How do I get access to my NSDictionary in the plist? Thanks.

Answer 1

It looks like your top-level object is a dictionary with one key named Root which contains your core dictionary (where your firstName and lastName keys live). So, to access this, you’d have to go through the object keyed by Root first. You can either get that dictionary and then access its keys, or use a keypath that includes the Root key:

// Accessing through the Root entry
NSDictionary* rootDict = [[self presetsDictionary] objectForKey:@"Root"];
NSArray* firstNames = [rootDict objectForKey:@"firstName"];
NSArray* lastNames  = [rootDict objectForKey:@"lastName"];

// Accessing using the keypath with Root
NSArray* firstNames = [[self presetsDictionary] valueForKeyPath:@"Root.firstName"];
NSArray* lastNames  = [[self presetsDictionary] valueForKeyPath:@"Root.lastName"];