Custom object to NSDictionary or NSData - ios7

Question

Guys i am new to iOS development hardly 2 weeks, i want to convert custom object to NSDictionary or NSData. I want to pass that complex object to web API to get and save.
class customClass{
var firstName:String?
var lastName:String?
var services:Services
}
class Services{
var list:[String] = [String]()
}
can somebody help me to resolve this please.

Answer 1

A bit late... try this in playground. Please note that it will not handle NSData correctly. Also, for the code to work, you need to make sure that your custom class inherits from NSObject and adheres to protocol Parsable. That is because you need to make use of the Objective C runtime for this solution to work with classes. Furthermore all your objects need to be subclasses of NSObject (e.g. NSArray instead of Swift type Array).
import UIKit
protocol Parsable {
}
// Define classes as NSObjects
class customClass: NSObject, Parsable {
var firstName:String?
var lastName:String?
var services:Services?
}
class Services: NSObject, Parsable {
var list:NSMutableArray = NSMutableArray()
}
// Create objects
var obj = customClass()
obj.firstName = "My"
obj.lastName = "Name"
var serv = Services()
serv.list = NSMutableArray()
serv.list.addObject("AAA")
serv.list.addObject("BBB")
obj.services = serv
// The magic
func parse(o: NSObject) -> AnyObject {
let aClass : AnyClass? = o.dynamicType
var propertiesCount : CUnsignedInt = 0
let propertiesInAClass : UnsafeMutablePointer<objc_property_t> = class_copyPropertyList(aClass, &propertiesCount)
let propertiesDictionary : NSMutableDictionary = NSMutableDictionary()
if propertiesCount == 0 {
if let a = o as? [NSObject] {
return a.map( {parse($0)} )
} else {
// Take into account NSData here!!!
return o
}
} else {
for var i = 0; i < Int(propertiesCount); i++ {
let property = propertiesInAClass[i]
let propertyName = NSString(CString: property_getName(property), encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding) as! String
let propertyValue : AnyObject = o.valueForKey(propertyName)!;
if propertyValue is NSObject && propertyValue is protocol<Parsable> {
propertiesDictionary.setValue(parse(propertyValue as! NSObject), forKey: propertyName)
} else {
propertiesDictionary.setValue(propertyValue, forKey: propertyName)
}
}
return propertiesDictionary
}
}
print(parse(obj))
//print(parse(obj.services!))
//print(parse(obj.services!.list))