Add dictionaries to nsdictionary as value for key - objective-c

Question

I have to prepare a dictionary for serialization and then post it to server. Dictionary may have several other dictionaries as values for #"items" key. But some brackets interrupt. And server response me an error html.
NSMutableArray *a = [[NSMutableArray alloc]init];
for(int i = 0; i < [self.cartCopy count]; i++) {
NSString *itemNumber = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%d", i + 1];
NSDictionary *tempDict = #{ itemNumber : #{
#"item_id" : [[self.cartCopy objectAtIndex:i]objectForKey:#"id"],
#"quantity" : [[self.cartCopy objectAtIndex:i]objectForKey:#"quantity"],
#"type" : [[self.cartCopy objectAtIndex:i]objectForKey:#"type"],
#"color_id" : #"0",
}
};
[a addObject:tempDict];
}
NSDictionary *dict = #{
#"date":oDate,
#"address":oAddress,
#"name":oName,
#"shipping_date":oShippingDate,
#"receiver_phone":oReceiverPhone,
#"customer_phone":oCustomerPhone,
#"total_price": oTotalPrice ,
#"additional_info": #"asd",
#"items": a
};
UPDATE: My NSLog of string after [NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject:dict options:kNilOptions error:nil] :
{"address":"asd",
"name":"asd",
"receiver_phone":"123",
"customer_phone":"123",
"total_price":"1",
"date":"2013-03-05 21:22:55",
"additional_info":"asd",
"items":[
{"1":{
"type":"2",
"color_id":"0",
"item_id":10,
"quantity":"3"
}
},
{"2":{
"type":"1",
"color_id":"0",
"item_id":74,
"quantity":"3"
}
}
],
"shipping_date":"2030-03-03 12:12:12"
}
I think the reason is square brackets. How can i delete them?
For example, it works perfectly with dictionary:
NSDictionary *dict = #{
#"date":oDate,
#"address":oAddress,
#"name":oName,
#"shipping_date":oShippingDate,
#"receiver_phone":oReceiverPhone,
#"customer_phone":oCustomerPhone,
#"total_price": oTotalPrice ,
#"additional_info": #"asd",
#"items": #{
#"1":#{
#"type":#"1",
#"color_id":#"0",
#"item_id":#"1",
#"quantity":#"1"
},
#"2":#{
#"type":#"1",
#"color_id":#"0",
#"item_id":#"1",
#"quantity":#"1"
}
}
};

Answer 1

In your example that works perfectly the items object is a dictionary with keys {1, 2}.
In your output JSON your items object is an array.
This array contains 2 objects, each one is a dictionary.
The first contains a single key {1}.
The second contains a single key {2}.
You just need to remove the array and use a dictionary instead to store these dictionaries.

Answer 2

That looks as if you want to send JSON to the server. You can create JSON data from your dictionary with
NSError *error;
NSData *jsonData = [NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject:dict options:0 error:&error];
If you need it as a string:
NSString *jsonString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:jsonData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];