Question

In my

- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser
        didStartElement:(NSString *)elementName
           namespaceURI:(NSString *)namespaceURI
          qualifiedName:(NSString *)qualifiedName
             attributes:(NSDictionary *)attributeDict {
          // ...
}

I check to see if one of my XML attributes is equal to a value I store in my plist. If it’s not then I want it to execute normally and get the latest information. If it is the same value though I don’t want to waste the processing time of getting all the data again. So if I have code like below how can I terminate the parsing process if the values are the same?

if (lastUpdated == [attributeDict valueForKey:@"last_updated"]) {
     // Terminate the xml parsing because data is up to date
}

Answer 1

You can use [parser abortParsing] but note that this is intended for XML errors rather than “I don’t want this data” situations and can cause your parser:parseErrorOcurred: method to be called a couple of times, in my experience.