Iterating through an NSArray and storing items in groups of 12 - ios

Question

I've definitely tried to do my due diligence on this one but keep coming up short. I have an array of objects that I have parsed and I want to iterate through these and store them. Assuming the array is 144 objects (just an example), I want to store it in groups of 12 to display in a tableview cell. Actually of those 12 objects in the array I'll likely only be displaying 3-4 in the cell, but all of those objects in the detail view.
To help explain what I mean (sorry if it hasn't made sense at this point) here's some of the code I've got that is getting the data.
NSMutableArray *objectsArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:0];
for (TFHppleElement *element in objectsNode) {
PHSingleEvent *singleEvent = [[PHSingleEvent alloc]init];
[objectsArray addObject:singleEvent];
singleEvent.title = [[element firstChild] content];
}
This pulls down the entire array of objects (an unknown number but definitely a multiple of 12). How would I go about storing 12 objects at a time into a single event?
I can log the info with
PHSingleEvent *firstObject = [objectsArray objectAtIndex:0] // this one is null
PHSingleEvent *eventStartTime = [objectsArray objectAtIndex:1];
PHSingleEvent *eventEndTime = [objectsArray objectAtIndex:2];
...
PHSingleEvent *lastObject = [objectsArray objectAtIndex:11];
NSLog(#"single object of event: %#", eventStartTime.startTime);
NSLog(#"single object of event: %#", eventEndTime.endTime);
etc...
But the array keeps going past 12. I want to iterate up through each 12 objects and store those values, preferably as strings to be displayed in a cell and detail view.
Any ideas?
Thanks much in advance and I will be here to answer any questions if I was unclear.
C.

Answer 1

How about using a for loop? Assuming that each event object has 12 sub-objects (i.e. indices 0 - 11) you could achieve storing it by using a mod function. For example:
NSMutableArray *eventArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
for(int i=0; i<objectArray.count/12;i++){
int offset = 12*i;
NSMutableArray *event = [objectsArray subarrayWithRange:NSMakeRange(offset, 12)];
[eventArray addObject:event];
}
So now eventArray has n arrays, each of 12 objects (where n = totalObjects/12)
EDIT: A better idea would be to use NSDictionary. For example:
NSMutableArray *eventArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
for(int i=0; i<objectArray.count/12;i++){
int offset = 12*i;
NSDictionary *tempDict = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys: [objectsArray objectAtIndex: offset], #"eventStartTime", [objectsArray objectAtIndex: offset+1], #"eventEndTime", ..., [objectsArray objectAtIndex: offset+11, #"lastObject",nil];
[eventArray addObject:tempDict];
}
Then you can access each of the above objects using a similar statement as shown below:
PHSingleEvent *eventStartTime = [[eventArray objectAtIndex: index] objectForKey: #"eventStartTime"];
Hope this helps

Answer 2

This method will return an array of smaller arrays based on the group size you specify.
- (NSMutableArray*)makeGroupsOf:(int)groupSize fromArray:(NSArray*)array
{
if (!array || array.count == 0 || groupSize == 0)
{
return nil;
}
NSMutableArray *bigGroup = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
for (int i = 0; i < array.count; )
{
NSMutableArray *smallGroup = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:groupSize];
for (int j = 0; j < groupSize && i < array.count; j++)
{
[smallGroup addObject:[array objectAtIndex:i]];
i++;
}
[bigGroup addObject:smallGroup];
}
return bigGroup;
}
I haven't tested it or anything though. After you have the big array with the smaller array(s) it is just a matter of filling each cell with any desired number of objects from the sub arrays.
Note: You might want to handle the cases when the array is empty, null or the group size is 0 differently.