I'm a total newbie to Objective-C and have been tasked with an assignment to compare 2 builds of same app for differences in their Info.plist and Defaults.plist.
I have been able to figure out the steps to read the PLists from app bundle but am having difficulty figuring out how to compare EVERY key in PLists to its counterpart file. For illustration if I need to compare Info.plist between 2 app bundle (lets say build_100 and build_101), how do I recursively go to each key in build_100 and compare the same key in build_101 to verify if they are same or not.
Its easy if both PLists are same because isEqualToDictionary will return TRUE but problem occurs if something in a nested dictionary is different between both the builds.
Going through related queries here, it clear to me that the answer is that I write a recursive method that iterates through both PLists but I'm having a real frustrating time to figure out a way to do this for a nested dictionary like Info.plist.
So I've finally figured this thing out so thought of sharing it with others for future reference. I'm sure there'll be some other lost soul in future looking for something similar (or at least I hope :)).
The way I wrote my code was to:
Read both Plists in NSDictionaries
Treat one Plist as "to be tested" and other as the reference (to compare against) to find out if its a Pass/Fail
Loop through all keys in "to be tested" Plist and compare each one of them in "reference" Plist
When it came to compare an Array or Dictionary, this check (that's the part I was struggling with) had to be a recursive check
The code to write for step #1, 2, 3 is straight forward so I'm going to give the method I wrote for #4 which was the crux of my original question.
This function compareSourceObject() will take 3 arguments:
sourceObject: object to be tested
targetObject: object to compare against
trailPath: string that'll hold the entire path of the key that has failed
- (void)compareSourceObject:(id)sourceObject andTargetObject:(id)targetObject withBreadcrumbTrail:(NSString *)trailPath{
NSString *message = [[NSString alloc] init];
if ([sourceObject isKindOfClass:[NSDictionary class]]){
for(id item in sourceObject){
[self compareSourceObject:[sourceObject objectForKey:item] andTargetObject:[targetObject objectForKey:item] withBreadcrumbTrail:[trailPath stringByAppendingFormat:#"->%#", item]];
}
}
else if ([sourceObject isKindOfClass:[NSArray class]]){
for (int counter=0; counter %d", counter]];
}
}
else if(![sourceObject isEqual:targetObject]){
NSLog(#"Values do not match. Value in \"TestedDicationary\" is (%#) but the reference dict has (%#)", targetObject, sourceObject);
}
}
Hope this helps. Comments/Suggestions/Optimizations are more than welcome.
Take one plist, and interpret the properties as a set (NSSet) of string values, e.g.
:items:0:assets array
:items:0:assets:0:kind string VALUE
Note I am using /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy format to describe a property - path type [value].
Then do the same for the second plist and compare the sets using NSSet functions.
Related
for now i am creating my NSMutableArray using:
#define ARRAY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE [NSArray arrayWithObjects:DICTIONARY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE_ALL,DICTIONARY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE_ECOMMERCE,DICTIONARY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE_PHYSICAL,DICTIONARY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE_INVOICE,DICTIONARY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE_RECURRING,DICTIONARY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE_SALESVU,DICTIONARY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE_RESERVATION,nil]
i want to do some thing like:
if(somethingIstrue)
[ARRAY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE addObject:DICTIONARY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE_ALL]
if(somethingElseIstrue)
[ARRAY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE addObject:DICTIONARY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE_ECOMMERCE]
i am doing this as i need this array in my whole project, i have this in constant.h file.
how can i acheive this using macro??
Thanks.
If you really want to have a macro for this you can have a multiline macro and placed there the logic you want. It is not totally clear to me what you want to achieve but instead of macro I would prefer to have a category on NSMutableArray returning the array or some kind of Util class doing so.
There are numerous things wrong with your question. For starters, you claim you are creating an NSMutableArray, but you are in actuality creating an NSArray. You then try to addObject on the immutable array, which you cannot do.
In your line (note I modified it to add a comment):
if(somethingIstrue) {
// The NSArray isn't assigned to anything and tries to addObject to an NSArray
[ARRAY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE addObject:DICTIONARY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE_ALL]
}
you are not assigning the array to anything (as I already noted it won't work because it is trying to add to an NSArray).
I think you want to do something like:
NSMutableArray *orderedSource = [NSMutableArray array];
if (somethingIsTrue) {
[orderedSource addObject:addObject:DICTIONARY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE_ALL];
}
if (somethingElseIsTrue) {
[orderedSource addObject:addObject:DICTIONARY_OF_ORDER_SOURCE_ECOMMERCE];
}
The question you have to ask yourself is why do you insist on using a macro? You have no real design/approach here, which is why your ideas are coming across as scattered.
If you need to consistently create an array based on a set of constraints, one approach would be to create a class which can vend for you the array you want based on criteria. Or you can just do it where you need to using the approach above.
I would like to understand more about the way XCode/Objective-C handle constant strings. I found a related question, but I would like more information. Consider the following code:
NSString *a = [[NSString alloc] initWithUTF8String:[[_textFieldA stringValue] UTF8String]];
NSString *b = [[NSString alloc] initWithUTF8String:[[_textFieldB stringValue] UTF8String]];
NSString *c = [a copy];
NSString *d = [a mutableCopy];
Note that the textFields are just a way to set the strings at runtime ensuring that the compiler doesn't get too smart on me and build in a single instance.
If my text fields are empty, or contain a single character such as "x" or "$", then a == b == c == the same constant NSString instance. If I instead provide "xy", then a == c != b. d is always unique, as one might expect since it is mutable.
Now normally this wouldn't be an issue, I'm not trying to modify the contents of these strings, however, I am working on a system where I frequently use objc_setAssociatedObject. So here now I might come accross an empty string, and then set associated object data on it, and then have another empty string and collide with the first.
I have, for the moment, solved my issue by creating mutable strings instead.
So my questions:
Is this an Objective-C specification, or an XCode excentricity?
Does anyone know how the instance is determined? Why "x" get's one instance, but not "xy"? I would think some internal dictionary is involved and there's no good reason to stop at 1 character.
Is there a way to turn this off, so all empty strings are unique instances, or other suggestions?
I am using XCode 5.1.1, OSX 10.9.4, SDK 10.9.
Thank you!
Is this an Objective-C specification, or an XCode excentricity?
It is just implementation detail. Not documented any where. These kind of behaviour may changed in future without notice.
Does anyone know how the instance is determined? Why "x" get's one instance, but not "xy"? I would think some internal dictionary is involved and there's no good reason to stop at 1 character.
No until someone able to access source code want to share the details with us.
Is there a way to turn this off, so all empty strings are unique instances, or other suggestions?
No way to turn it off. Don't use objc_setAssociatedObject with NSString
As #Ken Thomases said in comment
In general, it probably doesn't make sense to use objc_setAssociatedObject() with any value class.
Some other examples are NSNumber, NSData and NSValue. They are often cached and reused.
I am sorry to ask this but I have searched for hours on doing this but I really don't understand it. Please help me. I have a .plist file in my Xcode project and it's root is a Dictionary type. It contains about 50 more dictionaries. Inside the dictionary contains strings. (Dictionary(root) > Dictionary > String. I added a search field to my toolbar and linked it to my code. I am able to get what the user types but then how do I "search" after getting what the user typed? Is there a method for this and how do I link it into my .plist? Thank you so much!!!
You want to search for the user entered string in your Dictionary of Dictionaries?
You're going to have to iterate each dictionary, asking [dict objectForKey:userEntry] in each. Not sure if you want to only find first match or all matches too.
Additionally, you may want to create an abstraction of your Dictionary of Dictionaries to reduce the scale of the problem and clarify the API. In simpler terms, wrap your Dictionary of Dictionaries in a class and put a sensible (non-dictionary-based) set of methods on it. It's probably worth the effort.
To load the plist into a Dictionary, look at [Dictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile].
Edit: Filtering options on NSDictionary
Have you looked at the following options for filtering values in an NSDictionary:
[NSDictionary keysOfEntriesPassingTest:] (10.6 and later) or
take the [rootDictionary allValues] NSArray and use Predicates, perhaps like this.
NSDictionary has the following method signature:
- (NSArray *)objectsForKeys:(NSArray *)keys notFoundMarker:(id)anObject;
My question(s):
Is nil a reasonable default to use for notFoundMarker?
Is it possible to get the key (for which no value was found) back as the notFoundMarker itself? This is useful if the key and value were are different object types, and lets one know what's still missing.
Can a block be used as the value for notFoundMarker, will it actually run? Or will the block's stack-allocated-address simply be returned?
What are some really bad things to try and use as the value for notFoundMarker?
As pointed out in the comments below, you should use [NSNull null]
Probably not without writing your own wrapper method or some sort of category to do this. That said, if you just want to know what key wasn't found, you can simply look at the array of keys that you passed in, as the indexes will match up.
You can certainly use a block. I don't think it will be run. This should be very easy to test though (simply define a block that logs something out to the console and try it).
This really depends on the context and what you're doing to do with the returned array. There's nothing that's inherently bad to put in an array and return, but I'd question the decision to use anything that doesn't match the types of the objects you're expecting to be returned for keys that are found in the NSDictionary.
EDIT:
In fact you could probably achieve what you want for 2. like this:
NSMutableArray *objects = [myDictionary objectsForKeys:myKeys notfoundMarker:[NSNull null]];
for (int ii = 0; ii < [objects count]; ii++ ) {
if ([objects objectAtIndex:ii] == [NSNull null]) {
[objects insertObject:[myKeys objectAtIndex:ii] atIndex:ii];
}
}
I'm writing a game using cocos2d-iphone and our stages are defined in .plist files. However, the files are growing large - so I've developed an editor that adds some structure to the process and breaks most of the plist down into fixed fields. However, some elements still require plist editor type functionality, so I have implemented an NSOutlineView on the panels that show 'other parameters'. I am attempting to duplicate the functionality from XCode's 'Property List Editor'.
I've implemented the following system; http://www.stupendous.net/archives/2009/01/11/nsoutlineview-example/
This is very close to what I need, but there is a problem that I've spent most of today attempting to solve. Values for the key column are calculated 'backwards' from the selected item by finding the parent dictionary and using;
return [[parentObject allKeysForObject:item] objectAtIndex:0];
However, when there are multiple items with the same value within a given dictionary in the tree, this statement always returns the first item that has that value (it appears to compare the strings using isEqualToString: or hash values). This leads to the key column showing 'item1, item1, item1' instead of item1, item2, item3 (where items 1-3 all have value ''). I next tried;
-(NSString*)keyFromDictionary:(NSDictionary*)dict forItem:(id)item
{
for( uint i = 0; i < [[dict allKeys] count]; i++ ) {
id object = [dict objectForKey:[[dict allKeys] objectAtIndex:i]];
if ( &object == &item ) {
return [[dict allKeys] objectAtIndex:i];
}
}
return nil;
}
But this always returns nil. I was hoping that somebody with a bit more experience with NSOutlineView might be able to provide a better solution. While this problem only appears once in the linked example, I've had to use this a number of times when deleting items from dictionaries for instance. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
return [[parentObject allKeysForObject:item] objectAtIndex:0];
However, when there are multiple items with the same value within a given dictionary in the tree, this statement always returns the first item that has that value …
Well, yeah. That's what you told it to do: “Get me all the keys for this value; get me the first item in the array; return that”.
… this statement always returns the first item that has that value (it appears to compare the strings using isEqualToString: or hash values).
It's not that statement that's doing it; it's how dictionaries work: Each key can only be in the dictionary once and can only have exactly one object as its value, and this is enforced using the hash of the key and by sending the keys isEqual: messages (not the NSString-specific isEqualToString:—keys are not required to be strings*).
The values, on the other hand, are not uniquified. Any number of keys can have the same value. That's why going from values to keys—and especially to a key—is so problematic.
*Not in NSDictionary, anyway. When you attempt to generate the plist output, it will barf if the dictionary contains any non-string keys.
I next tried;
-(NSString*)keyFromDictionary:(NSDictionary*)dict forItem:(id)item
{
for( uint i = 0; i < [[dict allKeys] count]; i++ ) {
id object = [dict objectForKey:[[dict allKeys] objectAtIndex:i]];
if ( &object == &item ) {
return [[dict allKeys] objectAtIndex:i];
}
}
return nil;
}
But this always returns nil.
That's the least of that code's problems.
First, when iterating on an NSArray, you generally should not use indexes unless you absolutely need to. It's much cleaner to use fast enumeration.
Second, when you do need indexes into an NSArray, the correct type is NSUInteger. Don't mix and match types when you can help it.
Third, I don't know what you meant to do with the address-of operator there, but what you actually did was take the address of those two variables. Thus, you compared whether the local variable object is the same variable as the argument variable item. Since they're not the same variable, that test always returns false, which is why you never return an object—the only other exit point returns nil, so that's what always happens.
The problem with this code and the earlier one-liner is that you're attempting to go from a value to a single key, which is contrary to how dictionaries work: Only the keys are unique; any number of keys can have the same value.
You need to use something else as the items. Using the keys as the items would be one way; making a model object to represent each row would be another.
If you go the model-object route, don't forget to prevent multiple rows in the same virtual dictionary from having the same key. An NSMutableSet plus implementing hash and isEqual: would help with that.
You probably should also make the same change to your handling of arrays.
To clarify, I eventually resolved this problem by creating proxy objects for each of the collections in the plist file (so, for every NSMutableArray or NSMutableDictionary). This meant that I essentially mirrored the Plist structure and included references back to the original objects at each level. This allowed me to store the array index for each object or the dictionary key, so when saving items back from the outline view to the Plist structures, I used the 'key' or 'index' properties on the proxy object.