Extracting data from NSArray

Question

My php script sends a JSON response to my swift iOS app in the format shown below. This is parsed as an NSArray using the following code :

let jsonArray = try NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(data_fixed!, options:[])

I have created the following objects in my swift code:

class Friend : NSObject {
var name: String?
var id: String?
var profile_pic : String?


}


class Message : NSObject {
var id: String?
var text: String?
var date: NSDate?
var sender: Friend?
}

class Chat : NSObject {
var id : String?
var chat_partner : Friend?
var chat_messages : [Message]?
}

What I want to do now is to loop through the NSArray below, and extract the data into instances of my objects, so in simple terms with the example below, I want to create two chat objects with id's 1 and 2, and all the appropriate variables. I am not sure how to execute such a loop properly in swift.

JSON Response:

Array: (
    {
    chatId = 1;
    message =         {
        1 =             {
            chatId = 1;
            "message_id" = 24242241;
            sender = 1233;
            text = "hello i am";
            timestamp = "2016-05-24 17:13:08";
        };
        2 =             {
            chatId = 1;
            "message_id" = 421421;
            sender = 1233;
            text = great;
            timestamp = "2016-05-24 17:15:08";
        };
    };
    "user1_id" = 1233;
    "user1_name" = David;
    "user1_profile_pic" = "http://graph.facebsddsaadsadsook.com/1233/picture?type=large";
    "user2_id" = 8543211123;
    "user2_name" = 0;
    "user2_profile_pic" = "<null>";
},
    {
    chatId = 2;
    "user1_id" = 23413524635;
    "user1_name" = 0;
    "user1_profile_pic" = "<null>";
    "user2_id" = 1233;
    "user2_name" = David;
    "user2_profile_pic" = "http://graph.facebsdadsook.com/1233/picture?type=large";
}
)

UPDATE : CODE ATTEMPT

                        var count_chats = 0;
                       for anItem in jsonArray as! [Dictionary<String, AnyObject>] {
                            let curr_chat = Chat()
                            if let chatId = anItem["chatId"] as? String {
                                curr_chat.id = chatId
                            }
                            let friend = Friend()
                            let user1id = anItem["user1_id"] as! String
                            let user2id = anItem["user2_id"] as! String
                            if (user1id == userID) {
                                if let user2id = anItem["user2_id"] as? String {
                                    friend.id = user2id
                                }
                                if let user2name = anItem["user2_name"] as? String {
                                    friend.name = user2name
                                }
                                if let user2profilepic = anItem["user2_profile_pic"] as? String {
                                    friend.profile_pic = user2profilepic
                                }
                            }
                            else if (user2id == userID){
                                if let user1id = anItem["user1_id"] as? String {
                                    friend.id = user1id
                                }
                                if let user1name = anItem["user1_name"] as? String {
                                    friend.name = user1name
                                }
                                if let user1profilepic = anItem["user1_profile_pic"] as? String {
                                    friend.profile_pic = user1profilepic
                                }
                        }
                            print("passed")
                                curr_chat.chat_partner = friend


                            var chat_messages : [Message]? = nil
                            var count_messages = 0;
                            if let dataArray = anItem["message"] as? NSArray {
                                for onemessage in dataArray as! [Dictionary<String, AnyObject>] {
                                    let curr_message = Message()
                                    if let messageid = onemessage["message_id"] as? String {
                                        curr_message.id =  messageid
                                    }
                                    if let messagedate = onemessage["timestamp"] as? NSDate {
                                        curr_message.date = messagedate
                                    }
                                    if let messagesender = onemessage["sender"] as? String {
                                        curr_message.sender = messagesender
                                    }
                                    if let messagetext = onemessage["text"] as? String {
                                        curr_message.text = messagetext
                                    }
                                    chat_messages![count_messages] = curr_message
                                    count_messages = count_messages + 1
                                }
                            }

                            curr_chat.chat_messages = chat_messages
                            self.user_chats![count_chats] = curr_chat
                            count_chats = count_chats + 1

Answer 1

I really don't know if this is going to actually help someone, but I have been blocked by this for 3 days. I finially saw this question, and literally the question was the answer for me, thanks for that @Alk. To make it short, I was dealing with this type of data (NSArray):

[<__NSArrayM 0x6000000556e0>(
{
    author = Julioenred;
    id = 1;
    text = "hello world";
},
{
    author = Pepe;
    text = "Saludos!!";
}
)
]

The data i needed was the author and text of each index, so I was able to do this:

for i in data.first as! [Dictionary<String, AnyObject>] {
    let message = Message(message: "", user: "")
    if let author = i["author"] as? String {
       message.author = author
    }
    if let text = i["text"] as? String {
       message.text = text
    }
 }

Basically i search in the dictionary for the keys I'm looking for, if anybody ask, this is the object Message:

import Foundation

class Message: Mappable {
    var author: String? = ""
    var text: String? = ""
    
    init(message: String, user: String) {
        self.author = user
        self.text = message
    }
}

Answer 2

Not an answer but this might help you, you should maybe check that your property is not nil when you are writing things like this : curr_message.id = onemessage["chatId"] as! String . What you can do :

if let chatId = onemessage["chatId"] as? String {
   curr_message.id = chatId
}

Or if you want it to be more simple you can use Swifty JSON and write stuff like this :

curr_message.id = onemessage["chatId"].stringValue

Hope this can help you !