Getting a values from array - ios

Question

I have searchBar in my app,
What i want to do is when user types any character in searchBar, I want to get all the values starting with same character from my array.
Here is my code snippet i have tried but it crashes..
for (int i=0; i<[arr count]; i++) {
for(NSString *name in [[arr objectAtIndex:i] objectForKey:#"Merchant_Name"])
{
NSRange r = [name rangeOfString:searchText options:NSCaseInsensitiveSearch];
if(r.location != NSNotFound)
{
if(r.location== 0)//that is we are checking only the start of the naames.
{
[arr addObject:name];
}
}
}
}
Shows ERROR:-[__NSDictionaryM rangeOfString:options:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance
Where i am making mistake?
Please help and thanks in advance.
EDIT:
arr = {
"Merchant_Id" = 1036;
"Merchant_Name" = "Arzoo Hotels";
"Merchant_Url" = "arzoo-hotels";
},
{
"Merchant_Id" = 1037;
"Merchant_Name" = "Ashika Mall";
"Merchant_Url" = "ashika-mall";
},
{
"Merchant_Id" = 1038;
"Merchant_Name" = "At My Doorsteps";
"Merchant_Url" = "at-my-doorsteps";
},
{
"Merchant_Id" = 1039;
"Merchant_Name" = "AVA Host";
"Merchant_Url" = "ava-host";
},

Answer 1

For that, you should filter your array using NSPredicate.
Edit: Using predicate and filtering is much more readable and understandable. As stated in the comment, it might be slower, but you probably won't have 10,000,000+ strings you'd like to filter through, so saving 0.00001 second probably isn't worth writing a code 10 lines longer.
Documentation here.
And here's a whole tutorial about search bar and filtering data.
A quick example to filter an array and get values that begin with 'a' or 'c':
NSMutableArray *array =
[NSMutableArray arrayWithObjects:#"Nick", #"Ben", #"Adam", #"Melissa", nil];
NSPredicate *bPredicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"SELF beginswith[c] 'a'"];
NSArray *beginWithB = [array filteredArrayUsingPredicate:bPredicate];
// beginWithB contains { #"Adam" }.
NSPredicate *sPredicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"SELF contains[c] 'e'"];
[array filterUsingPredicate:sPredicate];

Answer 2

Using Below code you can do straight search
NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"Merchant_Name LIKE[cd] '%#' ",searchText];
NSArray *filter = [arr filteredArrayUsingPredicate:predicate];
Using Below code you can do custom search
NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"Merchant_Name beginswith[c] 'a'"];
NSArray *aNames = [arr filteredArrayUsingPredicate:predicate]
-use this code
-And Set Delegate to Uitextfield.
- (BOOL)textField:(UITextField *)textField shouldChangeCharactersInRange:(NSRange)range replacementString:(NSString *)string {
NSString *changedText = [textField.text stringByReplacingCharactersInRange:range withString:string];
NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"SELF['Merchant_Name'] contains %#",changedText];
NSArray *filter = [arraydata filteredArrayUsingPredicate:predicate];
NSLog(#"%#%",changedText);
return YES;
}

Answer 3

There is NSMutableDictionary type object in arr, try this to avoid crash:
for(NSString *name in arr){
if(![name isKindOfClass:[NSString class]]){
continue;
}
NSRange r = [name rangeOfString:searchText options:NSCaseInsensitiveSearch];
if(r.location != NSNotFound)
{
if(r.location== 0)//that is we are checking only the start of the naames.
{
[Array addObject:name];
}
}
counter++;
}