How to get an integer value from NSDictionary?

Question

I am having this weird issue. NSDictionary is not returning the correct integer value.

JSON response code from server.

{
"status":"ok",
"error_code":0,
"data" : [],
"msg":"everything is working!"
}

The JSON is being converted to a NSDictionary.

NSError *error = nil;
NSDictionary *jsonDict = [NSJSONSerialization
                          JSONObjectWithData:data
                          options:NSJSONReadingMutableContainers
                          error: &error];

I access the NSDictionary value using the following code.

int error_code = (int)[jsonDict valueForKey:@"error_code"]
NSLog(@"%i", error_code);
The log outputs the following: 143005344

I've even tried objectForKey and I get the same response.

Thanks, in advance.

Answer 1

Yes it outputs the pointer of the value and that's why you see this log output.

You cannot cast the pointer to an integer and expect the value.

int error_code = [[jsonDict valueForKey:@"error_code"] integerValue];

or if you want to use modern objective-c

int error_code = [jsonDict[@"error_code"] integerValue];

Answer 2

Numbers are stored as NSNumber instances in plist/json dictionaries. Try calling one of NSNumber's getters like intValue:

int error_code = [jsonDict[@"error_code"] intValue];

Note also the new subscripting syntax for dictionaries.