Json parsing in iOS playground do method is not parsing - ios

Question

I am trying to parse some json data into three different arrays based off the label in the json. I seem to be stuck and don't know why my for loop is never being entered. I am new to iOS and am using this to learn swift. Any help will be appreciated.
Here is the code that I am using:
var myPicture = [String]()
var myPath = [String]()
var mylabel = [String]()
let jsonString = "[{\"picture\" : \"Picture 1 \", \"path\": \"Path 1\" , \"label\" : \"Label 1\"}]"
//Convert jsonString to NSData
let myData = jsonString.dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding, allowLossyConversion: false)!
do{
let promoJson = try NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(myData, options:.AllowFragments)
if let promtions = promoJson[""] as? [[String: AnyObject]] {
for promtions in promtions {
if let picture = promtions["picture"] as? String
{
myPicture.append(picture)
if let path = promtions["path"] as? String
{
myPath.append(path)
if let label = promtions["label"] as? String
{
mylabel.append(label)
}
}
}
}
}
}catch {
print("Error with Json: \(error)")
}
print(myPicture.first)
print(myPath.first)
print(mylabel.first)
The results for the print are all nil. So nothing is being appended to the arrays

Answer 1

The if let promtions = promoJson[""] part won't work and would be useless anyway. This is only promoJson that you have to cast to an array of dictionaries.
You weren't that far from the solution, look at my working version of your code:
do {
let promoJson = try NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(myData, options: [])
if let promtions = promoJson as? [[String: AnyObject]] {
for promtion in promtions {
if let picture = promtion["picture"] as? String {
myPicture.append(picture)
}
if let path = promtion["path"] as? String {
myPath.append(path)
}
if let label = promtion["label"] as? String {
mylabel.append(label)
}
}
}
} catch let error as NSError {
print(error.debugDescription)
}
Alternative
Now that the issue is resolved, let me suggest you another way: instead of separate arrays for your data, use one array of objects holding your data.
For example, make a struct like this:
struct Promotion {
let picture: String
let path: String
let label: String
}
And an array for instances of this struct:
var myPromotions = [Promotion]()
Now we can decode the JSON, create objects from it then store them in the array:
do {
let promoJson = try NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(myData, options: [])
if let promtions = promoJson as? [[String: AnyObject]] {
for promtion in promtions {
if let picture = promtion["picture"] as? String,
path = promtion["path"] as? String,
label = promtion["label"] as? String {
let promo = Promotion(picture: picture, path: path, label: label)
myPromotions.append(promo)
}
}
}
} catch let error as NSError {
print(error.debugDescription)
}
Now look at the content of the array, very convenient:
for promo in myPromotions {
print(promo.label)
print(promo.path)
print(promo.picture)
}

Answer 2

When you are converting it is already an array.
import Foundation
import UIKit
var myPicture = [String]()
var myPath = [String]()
var mylabel = [String]()
let jsonString = "[{\"picture\" : \"Picture 1 \", \"path\": \"Path 1\" , \"label\" : \"Label 1\"}]"
//Convert jsonString to NSData
let myData = jsonString.dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding, allowLossyConversion: false)!
do{
let promoJson = try NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(myData, options:.AllowFragments) as! NSArray
for promtions in promoJson {
if let picture = promtions["picture"] as? String
{
myPicture.append(picture)
if let path = promtions["path"] as? String
{
myPath.append(path)
if let label = promtions["label"] as? String
{
mylabel.append(label)
}
}
}
}
}catch
{
print("Error with Json: \(error)")
}
print(myPicture.first) // "Optional("Picture 1 ")\n"
print(myPath.first) // "Optional("Path 1")\n"
print(mylabel.first) // "Optional("Label 1")\n"
This does the job.