Projection of properties of objects in NSArray/NSSet collections - ios

Question

I have an array of objects that I convert to a NSSet:
NSArray *arr = #[#{ #"someProp": #21, #"unnecessaryProp": #"tada" }, ... ];
NSSet *collection = [NSSet setWithArray:arr];
I would like to project the properties I want (by key) out of each object in the set and end up with a new array like:
NSArray *projectedArray = [collection allObjects]; // #[#{ "someProp": #21 }, ... ], "unnecessaryProp" has been removed
Besides enumeration, is there any other way, perhaps NSPredicate?
NOTE: The objects in the array are subclasses of NSObject, in my example I mentioned a NSDictionary

Answer 1

Since NSPredicate does not do projections, you would end up enumerating the set. I would enumerate it with a block, and project the keys in the individual dictionaries like this:
NSArray *keep= #["someProp"];
NSMutableArray *res = [NSMutableArray array];
[collection enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(id dict, BOOL *stop) {
NSArray *values = [dict objectsForKeys:keep notFoundMarker:#""];
[res addObject:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjects:values forKeys:keep]];
}];
EDIT : (in response to comments)
I should have mentioned that the objects inside the array are subclasses of NSObject and objectsForKeys is not a method.
Then you could use MartinR's suggestion to build a dictionary using KVC:
NSArray *keep= #["someProp"];
NSMutableArray *res = [NSMutableArray array];
[collection enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(id obj, BOOL *stop) {
[res addObject:[obj dictionaryWithValuesForKeys:keep]];
}];

Answer 2

If you only need the values for one property of the objects in a collection of type NSSet or NSArray or their subclasses, you can use the KVC method valueForKey:
NSArray *dogs = #[#{#"name" : #"Fido",
#"toys" : #[#"Ball", #"Kong"]},
#{#"name" : #"Rover",
#"toys" : #[#"Ball", #"Rope"]},
#{#"name" : #"Spot",
#"toys" : #[#"Rope", #"Kong"]}];
NSArray *vals = [set valueForKey:#"name"];
NSLog(#"%#", vals);
The above code prints the following on the console:
2014-05-16 09:26:58.293 xctest[17223:303] (
Fido,
Rover,
Spot
)
If you need the values of several properties of the objects in the collection, use dictionaryWithValuesForKeys:. Given the same array as in the previous example, the following code...
NSDictionary *dict = [dogs dictionaryWithValuesForKeys:#[#"name", #"toys"]];
NSLog(#"%#", dict);
produces an array of dictionaries, and logs the following output:
2014-05-16 09:35:34.793 xctest[17275:303] {
name = (
Fido,
Rover,
Spot
);
toys = (
(
Ball,
Kong
),
(
Ball,
Rope
),
(
Rope,
Kong
)
);
}
This works regardless of whether the objects in the target collections are instances of NSDictionary or of custom classes.

Answer 3

you can use indexOfObjectPassingTest on your array or NSSet.
__block NSUInteger maxIdex = [_myArrray count]-1;
__block NSMutableIndexSet* objToRemove = [[NSMutableIndexSet alloc]init];
[_myArrray indexOfObjectPassingTest:^(id object, NSUInteger idx, BOOL * stop){
MyObject *obj = (MyObject*)object;
if(....){
[objToRemove addIndex:[_myArrray indexOfObject:obj]];
}
*stop = (idx == maxIdex);
return *stop;
}];
[_myArrray removeObjectsAtIndexes:objToRemove];