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The title is really my question. I'm looking for a data type that mirrors the ability to use key=>value style and just array form. Please don't downvote before asking questions, its a little vague but i can answer questions just fine.

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NSDictionary is a key-value mapping structure. – Richard J. Ross III Feb 24 '12 at 23:09
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2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Typically libraries (such as SBJson) will return their parsed results as either an NSArray or an NSDictionary, just depending on if the parsed JSON element was an object or an array.

From SBJsonParser.h:

/**
 @brief Return the object represented by the given string

 This method converts its input to an NSData object containing UTF8 and calls -objectWithData: with it.

 @return The NSArray or NSDictionary represented by the object, or nil if an error occured.
 */
- (id)objectWithString:(NSString *)repr;

In your question you asked "I'm looking for a data type that mirrors the ability to use key=>value", that is by definition exactly what a dictionary is... so, you're probably looking for NSDictionary.

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is there a datatype that handles both objects and arrays? – nickcomer Feb 24 '12 at 23:08
To handle such situations even SBJson will return id, but ultimately its one or the other. From your own context you should know which you're getting back, and if not you can test the class of the returned entity to find out. – Jason Whitehorn Feb 24 '12 at 23:11
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up vote 2 down vote

The question doesn't make any sense. The JSON string itself determines what type of object you are going to get when it's deserialized. It can be a string, number, array or dictionary. You have to be prepared to receive any of those. If you use NSJSONSerialization, you'll notice that the decoding methods return id, which means you don't know the type ahead of time. You will have to use isKindOfClass: to figure out what you actually got back.

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