How can I retrieve all the contents of an NSDictionary? - objective-c

Question

I want to select and retrieve all the contents from an NSDictionary. I have a structure like this
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
listaOggetti = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
NSArray *arrayOne = [NSArray arrayWithObjects: #"First",#"Second",#"Third", nil];
NSArray *sortedOne = [arrayOne sortedArrayUsingSelector:#selector(localizedCaseInsensitiveCompare:)];
NSDictionary *dictOne = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:sortedOne forKey:#"Elementi"];
NSArray *arrayTWo = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:#"First1",#"Second1" ..., nil];
NSArray *sortedTwo = [arrayTwo sortedArrayUsingSelector:#selector(localizedCaseInsensitiveCompare:)];
NSDictionary *dictTwo = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:sortedTWo forKey:#"Elementi"];
NSArray *arrayThree = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:#"First2",#"Second2" ... , nil];
NSArray *sortedThree = [arrayThree sortedArrayUsingSelector:#selector(localizedCaseInsensitiveCompare:)];
NSDictionary *dictThree = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:sortedThree forKey:#"Elementi"];
[listaOggetti addObject:dictOne];
[listaOggetti addObject:dictTwo];
[listaOggetti addObject:dictThree];
}
And I want to retrieve all the objects for the key #"Elementi" (should be around 45) in order to add them in another array, like:
NSDictionary *dict = [listaOggetti objectAtIndex:indexPath.section];
NSArray *array = [dict objectForKey:#"Elementi"];
cellValue = [array objectAtIndex:indexPath.row] ;
(With this, dict is only 9 objects filled in my project).
At the end, the *array should be around 45 objects filled. I tried with allValues, but didn't work.
How can I fix it?

Answer 1

The easiest is to do this in -viewDidLoad:
NSMutableArray *allObjects = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
[allObjects addObjectsFromArray:sortedOne];
[allObjects addObjectsFromArray:sortedTwo];
[allObjects addObjectsFromArray:sortedThree];
Alternately, you can get them from the dictionaries in a similar fashion:
NSMutableArray *allObjects = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
[allObjects addObjectsFromArray:[[listaOggetti objectAtIndex:0] objectForKey#"Elementi"];
[allObjects addObjectsFromArray:[[listaOggetti objectAtIndex:1] objectForKey#"Elementi"];
[allObjects addObjectsFromArray:[[listaOggetti objectAtIndex:2] objectForKey#"Elementi"];
What you are failing to understand is that listaOggetti is an NSMutableArray containing three objects. When you call
NSDictionary *dict = [listaOggetti objectAtIndex:indexPath.section];
the result is that dict is a single dictionary, one of the three objects in listaOggetti. Therefore when you call
NSArray *array = [dict objectForKey:#"Elementi"];
the result is that array is the object for the key #"Elementi" of that one single dictionary dict. Your code makes no attempt to combine the three DIFFERENT dictionaries or to combine the three arrays, each set as objectForKey:#"Elementi" for the three DIFFERENT dictionaries.
If you want one array that is the concatenation of all three different arrays, then use one of the snippets provided above. In both of these snippets, the result is that allObjects is an NSMutableArray containing all three arrays, in order.