Filtering Parsed JSON in Objective-C - objective-c

Question

I'm trying to take out the "lasttradeprice" in https://www.allcrypt.com/api.php?method=singlemarketdata&marketid=672 but I can't seem to figure out how to grab the "lasttradeprice" piece.
How would I 'filter' the "price" out? None of the other information is relevant.
Current Code:
NSURL * url=[NSURL URLWithString:#"https://www.allcrypt.com/api.php?method=singlemarketdata&marketid=672"]; // pass your URL Here.
NSData * data=[NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:url];
NSError * error;
NSMutableDictionary * json = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options: NSJSONReadingMutableContainers error: &error];
NSLog(#"%#",json);
NSMutableArray * referanceArray=[[NSMutableArray alloc]init];
NSMutableArray * periodArray=[[NSMutableArray alloc]init];
NSArray * responseArr = json[#"lasttradeprice"];
for(NSDictionary * dict in responseArr)
{
[referanceArray addObject:[dict valueForKey:#"lasttradeprice"]];
[periodArray addObject:[dict valueForKey:#"lasttradeprice"]];
}
NSLog(#"%#",referanceArray);
NSLog(#"%#",periodArray);
NOTE: Keep in mind I've never worked with JSON before so please keep your answers dumbed down a tad.

Answer 1

Key value coding provides an easy way to dig through that data. Use the key path for the values you want. For example, it looks like you could get the array of recent trades using the path "return.markets.OMC.recenttrades" like this (assuming your code to get the json dictionary):
NSArray *trades = [json valueForKeyPath:#"return.markets.OMC.recenttrades"];
That's a lot more concise than having to dig down one level at a time.
The value returned for a given key by an array is the array of values returned by the array's members for that key. In other words, you can do this:
NSArray *recentprices = [trades valueForKey:#"price"];
And since that's just the next step in the key path, you can combine the two operations above into one:
NSArray *recentprices = [json valueforKeyPath:#"return.markets.OMC.recenttrades.price"];
The only down side here is that there's no real error checking -- either the data matches your expectations and you get back your array of prices, or it doesn't match at some level and you get nil. That's fine in some cases, not so much in others.
Putting that together with the relevant part of your code, we get:
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:#"https://www.allcrypt.com/api.php?method=singlemarketdata&marketid=672"];
NSData *data = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:url];
NSError *error = nil;
NSMutableDictionary *json = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options: NSJSONReadingMutableContainers error:&error];
NSArray *recentprices = [json valueforKeyPath:#"return.markets.OMC.recenttrades.price"];
Update: I just noticed that you want the "lasttradeprice", not the array of prices. Given that, the key path to use is simply #"return.markets.OMC.lasttradeprice", and the value you'll get back will be a string. So replace the last line above with:
NSString *lastTradePrice = [json valueforKeyPath:#"return.markets.OMC.lasttradeprice"];

Answer 2

The value you want is buried a few dictionaries deep. One general idea might be to dig recursively, something like this:
- (BOOL)isCollection:(id)object {
return [object isKindOfClass:[NSArray self]] || [object isKindOfClass:[NSDictionary self]];
}
- (void)valuesForDeepKey:(id)key in:(id)collection results:(NSMutableArray *)results {
if ([collection isKindOfClass:[NSDictionary self]]) {
NSDictionary *dictionary = (NSDictionary *)collection;
if (dictionary[key]) [results addObject:dictionary[key]];
for (id deeperKey in [dictionary allKeys]) {
if ([self isCollection:dictionary[deeperKey]]) {
[self valuesForDeepKey:key in:dictionary[deeperKey] results:results];
}
}
} else if ([collection isKindOfClass:[NSArray self]]) {
NSArray *array = (NSArray *)collection;
for (id object in array) {
if ([self isCollection:object]) {
[self valuesForDeepKey:key in:object results:results];
}
}
}
}
Then call it like this:
NSMutableArray *a = [NSMutableArray array];
[self valuesForDeepKey:#"lasttradeprice" in:json results:a];
NSLog(#"%#", a);