Generate JSON string from NSDictionary in iOS

Question

I have a dictionary I need to generate a JSON string by using dictionary. Is it possible to convert it? Can you guys please help on this?

Answer 1

public func jsonPrint(_ o: NSObject, spacing: String = "", after: String = "", before: String = "") {
    let newSpacing = spacing + "    "
    if o.isArray() {
        print(before + "[")
        if let a = o as? Array<NSObject> {
            for object in a {
                jsonPrint(object, spacing: newSpacing, after: object == a.last! ? "" : ",", before: newSpacing)
            }
        }
        print(spacing + "]" + after)
    } else {
        if o.isDictionary() {
            print(before + "{")
            if let a = o as? Dictionary<NSObject, NSObject> {
                for (key, val) in a {
                    jsonPrint(val, spacing: newSpacing, after: ",", before: newSpacing + key.description + " = ")
                }
            }
            print(spacing + "}" + after)
        } else {
            print(before + o.description + after)
        }
    }
}

This one is pretty close to original Objective-C print style

Answer 2

To convert a NSDictionary to a NSString:

NSError * err;
NSData * jsonData = [NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject:myDictionary options:0 error:&err]; 
NSString * myString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:jsonData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

Answer 3

NSMutableDictionary *contentDictionary = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc]init];
        [contentDictionary setValue:@"a" forKey:@"b"];
        [contentDictionary setValue:@"c" forKey:@"d"];
        NSData *data = [NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject:contentDictionary options:NSJSONWritingPrettyPrinted error:nil];
        NSString *jsonStr = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:data
                                                  encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

Answer 4

In Swift (version 2.0):

class func jsonStringWithJSONObject(jsonObject: AnyObject) throws -> String? {
    let data: NSData? = try? NSJSONSerialization.dataWithJSONObject(jsonObject, options: NSJSONWritingOptions.PrettyPrinted)

    var jsonStr: String?
    if data != nil {
        jsonStr = String(data: data!, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding)
    }

    return jsonStr
}

Answer 5

Apple added a JSON parser and serializer in iOS 5.0 and Mac OS X 10.7. See NSJSONSerialization.

To generate a JSON string from a NSDictionary or NSArray, you do not need to import any third party framework anymore.

Here is how to do it:

NSError *error; 
NSData *jsonData = [NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject:dictionaryOrArrayToOutput 
                                                   options:NSJSONWritingPrettyPrinted // Pass 0 if you don't care about the readability of the generated string
                                                     error:&error];

if (! jsonData) {
    NSLog(@"Got an error: %@", error);
} else {
    NSString *jsonString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:jsonData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
}

Answer 6

You can also do this on-the-fly by entering the following into the debugger

po [[NSString alloc] initWithData:[NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject:yourDictionary options:1 error:nil] encoding:4];