Question

using iphone sdk 4.0. The callback for an http request gives data as an NSData object

-(void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data {
    // Append the data received to our data
    [theData appendData:data];
}

In my php script on the server i am returning an array as follows

var_dump($array).

How do i get my array back from the NSMutableData object ‘theData’ obove on my iphone.

Thanks

Answer 1

You have a string describing your array (or maybe several arrays?) stored as a sequence of bytes in your NSMutableData object. In order to turn it back into an array you’re going to need to parse the var_dump output, which is likely to be arduous.

If you can find a library (or roll your own code) to return your data in Apple plist format, your task will be much easier: you can use

[NSPropertyListSerialization propertyListFromData:mutabilityOption:format:errorDescription:]

which takes an NSData (or NSMutableData) pointer as its first argument. Try http://code.google.com/p/cfpropertylist/ for a starting point.

---

From the example code at the cfpropertylist page:

$plist = new CFPropertyList();
$td = new CFTypeDetector();  
$guessedStructure = $td->toCFType( $array );
$plist->add( $guessedStructure );
// and then return the plist content with
$plist->toXML()

and in your iOS code:

NSString *errorString = nil;
NSArray *array = [[NSPropertyListSerialization 
                    propertyListFromData:theData
                    mutabilityOption:NSPropertyListImmutable
                    format:nil
                    errorDescription:&errorString] retain];