Parsing JSON in swift inconsistent - ios

Question

I'm running into what I believe to be a bug. I have an array of objects returned from a server. However, when pulling values out of them I get inconsistent results. Each of these items are in the same array of the response from server:
When I try to pull the quantity value of this one it returns as in Int:
{
address = "4040 MARKET ST RM 226";
city = PHILADELPHIA;
ln = "AMOXICILLIN 500 MG CAPSULE";
ndc = 57237003105;
npi = 1619912375;
"pharmacy_name" = "GRACE PHARMACY INC";
phone = "[phone]";
price = "8.00";
quantity = 500;
state = PA;
vendor = una;
zip = 19104;
}
However, when I try to pull quantity from this one, it's returned as a String.
{
address = "1826 Chestnut St # 30";
brand = G;
city = Philadelphia;
distance = "0.06";
latitude = "39.951747";
ln = "AMOXICILLIN 500 MG CAPSULE";
longitude = "-75.171154";
"ncpdp_id" = 3969485;
ndc = 65862001705;
"pharmacy_hours_of_operation" = "Open 24 Hours";
"pharmacy_name" = "CVS PHARMACY";
phone = "[phone]";
price = "11.82";
quantity = 30;
state = PA;
vendor = scriptsave;
zip = "19103-4902";
}
Why in the world would this be occurring? Both objects seems to be identical except for some extra values in one.
===
Serializing the JSON like this:
let searchResultsJSON: NSDictionary = try NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(jsonData, options: .MutableContainers) as! NSDictionary
Grabbing the values like this:
quantity = formDictionary["quantity"] as? Int
quantityString = formDictionary["quantity"] as? String
====
Here is the JSON:
results = (
{
address = "4040 MARKET ST RM 226";
city = PHILADELPHIA;
ln = "ESOMEPRAZOLE MAG DR 40 MG CAP";
ndc = 13668015510;
npi = 1619912375;
"pharmacy_name" = "GRACE PHARMACY INC";
phone = "[phone]";
price = "74.00";
quantity = 1000;
state = PA;
vendor = una;
zip = 19104;
},
{
address = "1700 Market St";
brand = G;
city = Philadelphia;
distance = "0.22";
latitude = "39.952981";
ln = "ESOMEPRAZOLE MAG DR 40 MG CAP";
longitude = "-75.168431";
"ncpdp_id" = 3985059;
ndc = 00378235193;
"pharmacy_hours_of_operation" = "S(Clsd) M(8a-6p) T(8a-6p) W(8a-6p) T(8a-6p) F(8a-6p) S(9a-12p)";
"pharmacy_name" = "PICKWICK PHARMACY INC";
phone = "[phone]";
price = "241.23";
quantity = 30;
state = PA;
vendor = scriptsave;
zip = "19103-3913";
}
);
So here, quantity in the first one is returned as an Int and as a String in the second one. I beginning to think this is a server side issue...
===
Looking at the JSON in Chrome does confirm that it's an encoding error from the server. Thanks #CouchDeveloper

Answer 1

Apple's API's for JSONSerialization are a bit nasty for usage in Swift.
If your happy to make use of third-party frameworks, SwiftyJSON will help with handling JSON in a type safe manner in swift. It's available as a Cocoapod, using Carthage or even Swift's own package manager.
You can then ensure you get non-nil Integer or String objects like so:
let name = json["name"].stringValue
let number = json["number"].intValue
Or you can handle non-existent values as optionals like so:
let name = json["name"].string
let number = json["number"].int