Question

Not sure what I am doing wrong here. When I try to check the dictionary either by a specific key or allkeys I either get an error or null. (I know I’m using a string where I could be using a boolean for the conditional I just like having a check like that say true or false instead of YES and NO. Add that to my OCD list. 😀 ) activePlayer is set in an awakeFromNib method to 1, it can be switched using a popupbutton between P1 and P2.

- (IBAction)setPlayer:(id)sender {

 haserror = @"false";
 errmsg = [NSMutableString stringWithCapacity:0];
 [errmsg retain];
 [errmsg appendString: @"There was a problem setting your team up\n\n"];
 thisTeamName = [txtTeamName stringValue];
 thisTeamColor = [pdTeamColor itemTitleAtIndex:[pdTeamColor indexOfSelectedItem]];

 //validate form
 if ([thisTeamName isEqualToString:@""]) {
  haserror = @"true";
  [errmsg appendString: @"You must enter a team name\n\n"];
 }

 if ([thisTeamColor isEqualToString:@"Select A Color"]) {
  haserror = @"true";
  [errmsg appendString: @"You must select a team color\n\n"];
 }

 //check for errors
 if (haserror == @"true")  {
  [self showAlert: errmsg];
 } else { 

  //set up treasury
  treasury = 1000;

  //convert to string for display
  [lblTreasury setStringValue: [NSString stringWithFormat:@"$%i", treasury] ];


  //add items to dictionary
  if (activePlayer == @"1") { 

   [p1TeamData setObject:thisTeamName forKey:@"teamName"];
   [p1TeamData setObject:thisTeamColor forKey:@"teamColor"];
   [p1TeamData setObject:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%i", treasury] forKey:@"cash"];
  } else { 
   [p2TeamData setObject:thisTeamName forKey:@"teamName"];
   [p2TeamData setObject:thisTeamColor forKey:@"teamColor"];
   [p2TeamData setObject:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%i", treasury] forKey:@"cash"];
  }

  NSLog(@"%@", [p1TeamData allKeys]);  

 }

 [errmsg release];
}

[Edit: here’s the .h file]

@interface GameController :NSObject {

IBOutlet id btnSaveData;
IBOutlet id lblTreasury;
IBOutlet id pdPickPlayer;
IBOutlet id pdTeamColor;
IBOutlet id txtTeamName;

int activePlayer;
NSString* activePlayerName;
NSString* activePlayerTeamColor;
int  treasury;

NSMutableDictionary* p1TeamData;
NSMutableDictionary* p2TeamData;

NSArray* players;
NSArray* teamColors;
NSArray* unittypes;

NSString* thisTeamName;
NSString* thisTeamColor;

NSMutableString* errmsg;
NSString* haserror;

}

-(void) awakeFromNib;
– (IBAction) getPlayer : (id)sender;
– (IBAction) setPlayer : (id)sender;
-(void) showAlert : (NSMutableString* ) m;
@end

Answer 1

Make sure you initialize the collections in the -initXXX method. If not, they will be assigned to nil.

-(id)initXXX:... {
   if ((self = [super initYYY:...])) {
     ...
     p1TeamData = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
     p2TeamData = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
     ...
   }
   return self;
}

---

If all you want are “true” and “false”, just define them yourself. It’s not a reason to use string instead of BOOL. In fact, Foundation already defined TRUE and FALSE besides YES and NO.

Also, please use an integer for activePlayer.

You should always compare NSString with -isEqualToString:, not ==.

if ([haserror isEqualToString:@"true"])

...

if ([activePlayer isEqualToString:@"1"])

This should be the reason why p1TeamData is always nil, because activePlayer == @"1" is unreliable and there could be player-1 stuff assigned to p2TeamData.