How do would you split this given NSString into a NSDictionary? - objective-c

Question

I have some data i aquire from some linux box and want to put it into a NSDictionary for later processing.
How wold you get this NSString into a NSDictionary like the following?
data
(
bytes
(
60 ( 1370515694 )
48 ( 812 )
49 ( 300 )
...
)
pkt
(
60 ( 380698 )
59 ( 8 )
58 ( 412 )
...
)
block
(
60 ( 5 )
48 ( 4 )
49 ( 7 )
...
)
drop
(
60 ( 706 )
48 ( 2 )
49 ( 4 )
...
)
session
(
60 ( 3 )
48 ( 1 )
49 ( 2 )
...
)
)
The data string looks like:
//time bytes pkt block drop session
60 1370515694 380698 5 706 3
48 812 8 4 2 1
49 300 412 7 4 2
50 0 0 0 0 0
51 87 2 0 0 0
52 87 2 0 0 0
53 0 0 0 0 0
54 0 0 0 0 0
55 0 0 0 0 0
56 0 0 0 0 0
57 812 8 0 0 0
58 812 8 0 0 0
59 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
1 2239 12 2 0 0
2 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0
4 0 0 0 0 0
5 0 0 0 0 0
6 0 0 0 0 0
7 2882 19 2 0 0
8 4906 29 4 0 0
9 1844 15 11 0 0
10 4210 29 17 0 0
11 3370 18 4 0 0
12 3370 18 4 0 0
13 1184 7 3 0 0
14 0 0 0 0 0
15 4046 19 3 0 0
16 4956 23 3 0 0
17 2960 18 2 0 0
18 2960 18 2 0 0
19 1088 6 2 0 0
20 0 0 0 0 0
21 3261 17 3 0 0
22 3261 17 3 0 0
23 1228 6 2 0 0
24 1228 6 2 0 0
25 2628 17 2 0 0
26 4688 26 3 0 0
27 1752 13 5 0 0
28 3062 21 5 0 0
29 174 2 2 0 0
30 96 1 1 0 0
31 4351 23 5 0 0
32 0 0 0 0 0
33 4930 23 7 0 0
34 6750 31 7 0 0
35 1241 6 2 0 0
36 1241 6 2 0 0
37 3571 29 2 0 0
38 0 0 0 0 0
39 1010 5 1 0 0
40 1010 5 1 0 0
41 88859 72 3 0 1
42 90783 81 4 0 1
43 2914 19 3 0 0
44 0 0 0 0 0
45 2157 17 1 0 0
46 2157 17 1 0 0
47 78 1 1 0 0
.
Time (first column) should be the key for the sub-sub-dictionaries.
So the idea behind all that is that i can later randmly access the PKT value at a given TIME x, as well as the BLOCK amount at TIME y, and SESSION value at TIME z .. and so on..
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

You probably don't want a dictionary but an array containing dictionaries of all the data entries. The simplest way to parse something like this in Objective-C is to use the componentsSeparatedByString method in NSString
NSString* dataString = <Your Data String> // Assumes the items are separated by newlines
NSArray* items = [dataString componentsSeparatedByString:#"\n"];
NSMutableArray* dataDictionaries = [NSMutableArray array];
for (NSString* item in items) {
NSArray* elements = [item componentsSeparatedByString:#" "];
NSDictionary* entry = #{
#"time": [elements objectAtIndex:0],
#"bytes": [elements objectAtIndex:1],
#"pkt": [elements objectAtIndex:2],
#"block": [elements objectAtIndex:3], #"drop": [elements objectAtIndex:4],
#"session": [elements objectAtIndex:5],
};
[dataDictionaries addObject: entry];
}