TOUCHJSON Serialization from NSDictionary - serialization

Question

I've read through the questions and answers related to TouchJSON serialization and I'm still not getting it to work.
I create an NSDictionary with sample data and used the JSONTouch serializer to convert the NSDictionary to JSON. However, when I log the NSData object 'theJSONData', it gives me this as a result:
<7b223131 31353535 34343434 223a2250
...
65227d>
Additionally, when I send this 'theJSONData' data to the web service (that's expecting JSON) this is what I get back:
2011-07-31 18:48:46.572 Street Lights[7169:207] Serialization Error: (null)
2011-07-31 18:48:46.804 Street Lights[7169:207] returnData: (null)
2011-07-31 18:48:46.805 Street Lights[7169:207] Error: Error Domain=kJSONScannerErrorDomain Code=-201 "Could not scan array. Array not started by a '[' character." UserInfo=0x4d51ab0 {snippet=!HERE>!?xml version="1.0" , location=0, NSLocalizedDescription=Could not scan array. Array not started by a '[' character., character=0, line=0}
What am I doing wrong? Does the JSON NSData object 'theJSONData' need to be converted to another type before I send it to the web service? Is there another step I'm missing?
// Create the dictionary
NSDictionary *outage = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:
#"YCoord", #"12678967.543233",
#"XCoord", #"12678967.543233",
#"StreetLightID", #"666",
#"StreetLightCondition", #"Let's just say 'BAD'",
#"PhoneNumber", #"1115554444",
#"LastName", #"Smith",
#"Image",#"",
#"FirstName", #"Dawn",
#"Comments", #"Pole knocked down",
nil];
NSError *error = NULL;
// Serialize the data
NSData *theJSONData = [[CJSONSerializer serializer] serializeDictionary:outage error:&error];
NSLog(#"theJSONData: %#", theJSONData);
NSLog(#"Serialization Error: %#", error);
// Set up the request and send it
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL: [NSURL URLWithString: #"http://24.52.35.127:81/StreetLight/StreetlightService/CreateStreetLightOutage"]];
[request setHTTPMethod: #"POST"];
[request setHTTPBody: theJSONData];
// Deserialize the response
NSData *returnData = [ NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest: request returningResponse: nil error:&error];
NSString *returnString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:returnData encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSData *theReturnData = [returnString dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
id theObject = [[CJSONDeserializer deserializer] deserializeAsArray:theReturnData error:&error];
NSLog(#"returnData: %#",theObject);
NSLog(#"Error: %#", error);

Answer 1

Thanks for everyone's help. I ended up using Fiddler to track what needed to be sent to the service in JSON and then saw I hadn't been formatting the header correctly. Here is the code that ended up working for me.
// Create the NSDictionary
NSDictionary *outage = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:
#"12.543233",#"YCoord",
#"12.543233",#"XCoord",
#"111",#"StreetLightID",
#"Dented pole",#"StreetLightCondition",
#"1115554444",#"PhoneNumber",
#"Black",#"LastName",
[NSNull null],#"Image",
#"White",#"FirstName",
#"Hit by a car",#"Comments",
nil];
// Serialize the data
NSError *error = NULL;
NSData *theJSONData = [[CJSONSerializer serializer] serializeDictionary:outage error:&error];
NSLog(#"Serialization Error: %#", error);
// Change the data back to a string
NSString* theStringObject = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:theJSONData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
// Determine the length of the data
NSData *requestData = [NSData dataWithBytes: [theStringObject UTF8String] length: [theStringObject length]];
NSString* requestDataLengthString = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:#"%d", [requestData length]];
// Create request to send to web service
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL: [NSURL URLWithString: #"http://11.22.33.444:55/StreetLight/StreetlightService/CreateStreetLightOutage"]];
[request setHTTPMethod:#"POST"];
[request setHTTPBody:requestData];
[request setValue:#"application/json" forHTTPHeaderField:#"Content-Type"];
[request setValue:requestDataLengthString forHTTPHeaderField:#"Content-Length"];
[request setTimeoutInterval:30.0];
// Deserialize the response
NSData *returnData = [ NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest: request returningResponse: nil error:&error];
NSString *returnString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:returnData encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSData *theReturnData = [returnString dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
id theObject = [[CJSONDeserializer deserializer] deserializeAsArray:theReturnData error:&error];
NSLog(#"returnData: %#",returnString);
NSLog(#"Error: %#", error);

Answer 2

For one thing, you've got your objects and keys reversed in the NSDictionary.
I don't know enough about TouchJSON to help with that part of the code.

Answer 3

I am having similar issues in parsing a goodle v3 api response. Still no closer to resolving my issue, but one thing I have found that may be helpful to you is if you are using the deserializerAsArray then the JSON response must be enclose in "[" and "]" and if you are deserializerAsDictionary then the JSON response must be enclosed in "{" and "}".
As the google v3 api JSON response is in the "{" "}" format I need to use deserialiserAsDictionary method.
I suspect you know this already, but after looking at Jonathan Wight's code this is as far as I have come in resolving my own issue as Jonathan's code is specific in checking for the above in parsing the JSON response.
Thanks,
Tim