JSON Parsing in iOS 7

Question

I am creating an app for as existing website. They currently has the JSON in the following format :

[     {        "id": "value",        "array": "[{\"id\" : \"value\"} , {\"id\" : \"value\"}]"    },    {        "id": "value",        "array": "[{\"id\" : \"value\"},{\"id\" : \"value\"}]"    }  ] 

which they parse after escaping the \ character using Javascript.

My problem is when i parse it in iOS using the following command :

NSArray *result = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:jsonData options:kNilOptions error:&localError]; 

and do this :

NSArray *Array = [result valueForKey:@"array"]; 

Instead of an Array I got NSMutableString object.

• The website is already in production so I just cant ask them to change their existing structure to return a proper JSON object. It would be a lot of work for them.

• So, until they change the underlying stucture, is there any way i can make it work in iOS like they do with javascript on their website?

Any help/suggestion would be very helpful to me.

Answer 1

The correct JSON should presumably look something like:

[     {         "id": "value",         "array": [{"id": "value"},{"id": "value"}]     },     {         "id": "value",         "array": [{"id": "value"},{"id": "value"}]     } ] 

But, if you're stuck this the format provided in your question, you need to make the dictionary mutable with NSJSONReadingMutableContainers and then call NSJSONSerialization again for each of those array entries:

NSMutableArray *array = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options:NSJSONReadingMutableContainers error:&error]; if (error)     NSLog(@"JSONObjectWithData error: %@", error);  for (NSMutableDictionary *dictionary in array) {     NSString *arrayString = dictionary[@"array"];     if (arrayString)     {         NSData *data = [arrayString dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];         NSError *error = nil;         dictionary[@"array"] = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options:0 error:&error];         if (error)             NSLog(@"JSONObjectWithData for array error: %@", error);     } }