iphone xml binding / parsing to objects - objective-c

Question

I'm new to iphone developing and what I want is an xml parser that I can bind to Objects. I searched a lot but I still need some help. For example I have the following xml structure:
<xml>
<hotels>
<hotel>
<id>1</id>
<name>Hotel Name</name>
</hotel>
<hotel>
....
</hotel>
</hotels>
<beaches>
<beach>
<id>11</id>
<name>Beach Name</name>
</beach>
<beach>
....
</beach>
</beaches>
</xml>
Now my question is...which is the best (or maybe easier) way to read this xml file and parse for example...:
Now I want a list of all hotels...so I want o parse and get that list...etc.
Now I want beach with id = 11 etc.
Can this be done easily in iphone? Which is the best approach? I would be thankful if you could give me examples with source code or such. Thanks in advance.
NOTE: I will support at least ios 4.3 or later.

Answer 1

you can try implementing NSXMLParserDelegate then write your logic in
- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser didStartElement:(NSString *)elementName namespaceURI:
(NSString *)namespaceURI qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName attributes:(NSDictionary
*)attributeDict
- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser didEndElement:(NSString *)elementName namespaceURI:
(NSString *)namespaceURI qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName
Example code:-
Create XMLParser class, then bean classes for Hotel, Beach and arrays for storing these objects.
XMLParser.h
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#interface XMLParser : NSObject <NSXMLParserDelegate>
#property (strong, readonly) NSMutableArray *yourObjects;
-(id) parseXML:(NSString *)url;
#end
XMLParser.m
#import "XMLParser.h"
#import "YourObject.h"
#implementation XMLParser
#synthesize yourObjects =_yourObjects;
NSMutableString *currentNode;
NSXMLParser *parser;
YourObject *YourObject;
-(id) parseXML:(NSString *)url
{
_yourObjects = [[NSMutableArray alloc]init];
NSURL *nsURL = [NSURL URLWithString:url];
NSData *data = [[NSData alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:nsURL];
parser = [[NSXMLParser alloc] initWithData:data];
parser.delegate = self;
[parser parse];
return self;
}
- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser foundCharacters:(NSString *)string
{
currentNode = (NSMutableString *) [string stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:
[NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]];
}
- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser didStartElement:(NSString *)elementName namespaceURI:
(NSString *)namespaceURI qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName attributes:(NSDictionary
*)attributeDict
{
if ([elementName isEqualToString:#"hotel"])
{
yourObject = [YourObject alloc]; //eg:- Hotel
//any logic that you want to include.....
}
if ([elementName isEqualToString:#"beach"])
{
yourObject = [YourObject alloc]; //eg:- beach
//any logic that you want to include.....
}
}
#end
- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser didEndElement:(NSString *)elementName namespaceURI:
(NSString *)namespaceURI qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName
{
if([elementName isEqualToString:#"status"])
{
[self.yourObjects addObject:yourObject];
yourObject = nil;
currentNode = nil;
}
}
call -(id) parseXML:(NSString *)url; to parse the required XML and retrieve the Objects.
Hope this helps.