Reading plist into TableView

Question

I started this project with a simple plist of a dictionary with two arrays of strings. I now want to add more information and want to use this plist structure:

Root - Dictionary - (2 items)
   Standard - Array - (3 items)
      Item 0 - Dictionary - (4 items)
           Color - String - Red
           Rvalue - String - 255
           Gvalue - String - 0
           Bvalue - String - 0

Sorry about typing in the plist but the site would not let me post an image

I know that the RGB values could be numbers instead of strings but I have a reason for them being strings.

This is the code I used to read the simple plist:

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {

    NSUInteger section = [indexPath section];
    NSUInteger row = [indexPath row];
    NSString *key = [keys objectAtIndex:section];
    NSArray *colorSection = [colors objectForKey:key];

    static NSString *SectionsTableIdentifier = @"SectionsTableIdentifier";

    UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:SectionsTableIdentifier];

    if(cell == nil){
        cell=[[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero reuseIdentifier: SectionsTableIdentifier] autorelease];
        }

    cell.textLabel.text = [colorSection objectAtIndex:row];
    [cell setAccessoryType:UITableViewCellAccessoryDetailDisclosureButton]; //add disclosure button to rows
    return cell;
}

My question is what is the specific code to retrieve the contents of the color dictionaries to get the Colors for the cell.textLabel.text and also read the RGB values to add a subtitle. I've been working on this for several days and have read references and lots of examples and unfortunately can't solve the problem. Your assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

So providing you have your Standard - Array stored against a Array you've defined in your .h file then something like this would work. In this example the array is stored against self.coloursArray.

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
static NSString *SectionsTableIdentifier = @"SectionsTableIdentifier";

UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:SectionsTableIdentifier];

if(cell == nil){
    cell=[[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero reuseIdentifier: SectionsTableIdentifier] autorelease];
    }
NSString* ColourString = [[self.coloursArray objectAtIndex:indexPath.row] valueForKey:@"Colour"];
NSString* rValue = [[self.coloursArray objectAtIndex:indexPath.row] valueForKey:@"Rvalue"];
NSString* gValue = [[self.coloursArray objectAtIndex:indexPath.row] valueForKey:@"Gvalue"];
NSString* bValue = [[self.coloursArray objectAtIndex:indexPath.row] valueForKey:@"Bvalue"];
cell.textLabel.text = ColourString;
NSString* subCellString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@:%@:%@", rValue, gValue, bValue];
}

Hopefully that'll give a a hand.

Answer 2

First, do not use -[UITableViewCell initWithFrame:reuseIdentifier:]. It has been deprecated and will give you a warning, plus it will make your subtitle harder to implement. This code is a modified version of yours which loads the information, sets the title to the Color property, and sets the subtitle to a string containing the Rvalue, Gvalue, and Bvalue properties.

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {

    NSUInteger section = [indexPath section];
    NSUInteger row = [indexPath row];
    NSString *key = [keys objectAtIndex:section];
    NSArray *colorSection = [colors objectForKey:key];

    static NSString *SectionsTableIdentifier = @"SectionsTableIdentifier";

    UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:SectionsTableIdentifier];

    if(cell == nil) {
        cell=[[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleSubtitle reuseIdentifier: SectionsTableIdentifier] autorelease];
    }

    NSDictionary *color = [colorSection objectAtIndex:row];
    cell.textLabel.text = [color objectForKey:@"Color"];
    cell.detailTextLabel.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@, %@, %@",[color objectForKey:@"Rvalue"],[color objectForKey:@"Gvalue"],[color objectForKey:@"Bvalue"]];
    [cell setAccessoryType:UITableViewCellAccessoryDetailDisclosureButton]; //add disclosure button to rows
    return cell;
}