Question

I have a plist which contains an array of NSDictionary ‘s which represent a certain event each dictionary contains a few pieces of information about the event and a NSDate with the date of the event e.g.

I wish to create a sectioned table view with this date very much like in the Calendar app which ships with the iPhone when you click on the “List” view. You can see there are only sections for the dates where there are events.

So whats the best way to find out to begin with how many NSDictionary ‘s have the same date (so I know how many sections to create and how many rows in each section, as each section will have a different amount or rows).

Thanks

Answer 1

I did something very similar to this for Reconnected except my sections are for years (see the History screenshot).

1. Sort the array by the date key.
2. Start with the first item. The date of the first item represents the first segment. In my case, I only care about the year.
3. Create an array for the section with the date. Add the currently inspected to the section’s array. Add the section’s array to another array that will be the array of all sections in your table.
4. Move on to the next item. If the next item’s date equals the previous item’s date, add the current item to the current section’s array. Otherwise, apply step #3 to the new date.
5. Repeat the previous step for rest of the array from your plist.

At the end of step 5, you should have an array of sections. From that section you can send it a message for the number of NSDictionary’s you’ve added to the section which will represent each rows in your table.