Saving IOS dictionary with arrays as keys - ios

Question

i am working with Tapku's Calendar, and i want to save some values that will be user inputed.
But i am kind of stumbled on how i would achive this, here is the layout:
// allocate the arrays and dictionary
NSMutableDictionary *dict = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
NSMutableArray *dateValueArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
// set array values
[dateValueArray addObject:#"first string"];
[dateValueArray addObject:#"Second string"];
// set dictionary with date as key, and array as value
[dict setObject:dateValueArray forKey:testdate];
The dictionary dict, will be the only Dictionary, but since that dictionary uses arrays for objects, i would have multiple arrays.
So, lets say there are multiple dates registerd in "dict", different keys would have to use different arrays? Sorry i am abit confused my self here.
Is there any way i can use 1 array to store all the strings associated with different dictionary keys ?
EDIT 1
Elaboration:
The whole idea is that the user can input text that are associated with dates.
I will need to store these values and i will need to store which date they are associated to.
So i have multiple values in an array, associated with 1 date in a dictionary.
And keeping in mind that i will have to store this, i would like to know how i should assign the values to the dates.
EDIT 2:
Basically what i need for the Array is something like AddObject ForKey
Edit 3
More elaboration::
Basically i want to access the values in this manner:
[date1][note1]
[date1][note2]
[date2][note1]
[date2][note2]
And the amount of values in both date and note are variable.

Answer 1

If I understand what you are asking about, what you want is the property of NSDictionary allKeys which is an array of all the keys in that dictionary.

Answer 2

Now I see your edit. You are in the right way. To perform what you are looking for, do something like this:
First, allocate your dict somewhre:
// allocate the arrays and dictionary
NSMutableDictionary *dict = [NSMutableDictionary new];
Now, everytime you get a new date with a new string, first check if there's the first string for that date. If yes, create a new array. If not, add your string inside the previously array.
NSMutableArray *valuesForDate = dict[givenDate];
if (!valuesForDate)
{
valuesForDate [NSMutableArray new];
dict[givenDate] = valuesForDate
}
[valuesForDate addObject:#"first string for dateGiven"];
[valuesForDate addObject:#"Second string for dateGiven"];
Now you can retrieve the values with something like you wanted:
NSString *test = dict[date1][0]; //first string associated for date1
NArray *allStringsForDate2 = dict[date2]; //array with all the strings for date2

Answer 3

You can try using NSMapTable instead of NSDictionary, which is much more flexible but also much harder to use. You'll also find it hard to find anyone knowing the answers if you have questions about NSMapTable. But you can definitely create an NSMapTable which will use pointers of objects as keys, instead of the values.