Question

In RestKit is there an easy way to include a parent reference in a child object? For instance if I have JSON that looks like this:

{
    "parent": {
        "name": "Jim",
        "child": {
            "name": "John"
        }
    }
}

How do I configure the RKObjectMapping such that my “child” object has a “parent” reference (i.e. child.parent)?

Answer 1

I’ve come up with a decent workaround because this doesn’t appear to be directly supported by RestKit.

What you need to do is use key-value validation to place the parent reference into the child object. So, for the above example the Parent model would look something like this:

@interface Parent : NSObject

@property (strong, nonatomic) NSString *name;
@property (strong, nonatomic) Child *child;

@end

@implementation Parent

@synthesize name = _name;
@synthesize child = _child;

- (BOOL)validateChild:(id *)ioValue error:(NSError **)outError
{
    Child *child = (Child *)*ioValue;
    child.parent = self;
    return YES;
}

@end