Question

I’m trying to learn how to read from a plist… mine is a simple case. I really just want to read one integer, although for a more general case of data I would appreciate advice as well. The plist has Item0 – Array, and under that Item 0 with a number. This is how I’m trying to read this.

plistArray = [[NSArray alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL      URLWithString:@"http://www.website.com/count.plist"]];


//count = [[plistArray objectAtIndex:0]];
count=(int)[plistArray objectAtIndex:0];
NSLog(@"array %@\n",plistArray);

NSLog(@"count %i\n",count);

This is the plist xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
;<plist version="1.0"> 
    <dict> 
        <key>Item0</key> 
        <array> 
            <integer>12</integer> 
        </array> 
    </dict> 
</plist>

Answer 1

There are two problems with the plist:

• the ; in front of the <plist> tag should not be there
• the array you’re trying to read in your code is inside a dictionary in the plist (the array is not the outermost element)

First, remove the semi-colon.

Next, either update the plist to contain only the <array> element or update the code to first read the <dict> and then take the NSArray from the dictionary:

NSDictionary *plistDict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfURL:url];

NSArray *plistArray = [plistDict objectForKey:@"Item0"];

int count = [(NSNumber *)[plistArray objectAtIndex:0] intValue];