SwiftJSONi 0.1.1

SwiftJSONi 0.1.1

Maintained by Akaash Dev.



SwiftJSONi

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Why SwiftJSONi?

The traditional way of handling JSON in Swift is so cumbersome and requires many lines of code. For example, consider a JSON response from a API for bakery items,

{
    "items": {
        "item": [
            {
                "id": "0001",
                "type": "donut",
                "name": "Cake",
                "ppu": 0.55,
                "batters": {
                "batter": [
                        { "id": "1001", "type": "Regular" },
                        { "id": "1002", "type": "Chocolate" },
                        { "id": "1003", "type": "Blueberry" },
                        { "id": "1004", "type": "Devil's Food" }
                    ]
                },
                "topping": [
                    { "id": "5001", "type": "None" },
                    { "id": "5002", "type": "Glazed" },
                    { "id": "5005", "type": "Sugar" },
                    { "id": "5007", "type": "Powdered Sugar" },
                    { "id": "5006", "type": "Chocolate with Sprinkles" },
                    { "id": "5003", "type": "Chocolate" },
                    { "id": "5004", "type": "Maple" }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }
}

To get the type of 4th topping in first item, the safest Swift code looks like,

if let json = try? JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: jsonData, options: .allowFragments) as? [String: Any],
    let items = object["items"] as? [String: Any],
    let item = items["item"] as? [[String: Any]],
    let firstItem = item.first,
    let toppings = firstItem["topping"] as? [[String: Any]],
    toppings.count >= 3,
    let type = toppings[3]["type"] as? String
{
    print(type)
}

It involves lots of typecasting and safe index checks due to Swift's strict typecast and array index policies. To achieve the same with SwiftJSONi, the code looks like,

if let json = JSON(data: jsonData),
    let type = json["items"]["item"][0]["topping"][3]["type"].string
{
    print(type)
}

That's it!! It is so safe and readable. No need to worry about type casting and array index checks. It is all done automatically.

Installation

SwiftJSONi is available through CocoaPods. To install it, simply add the following line to your Podfile:

pod 'SwiftJSONi'

Usage

Initialization

import SwiftJSONi

let data: Data? // Response from API
let json = JSON(data: data) // Returns JSON?

let any: Any? // Value of Any type
let json = JSON(any) // Returns JSON?

let dictionary: [String: Any]
let json = JSON(dictionary) // Returns JSON

let validatedJSON = JSON(validateObject: dictionary) // Returns JSON?   
        // Returns 'nil' when a value for key has unsupported JSON type.

Accessing values

Consider the bakery items JSON in the above example. Accessing the 'id' of first item be like,

let firstItem = json["items"]["item"][0] 
let id = firstItem["id"].string

Difference between .string and .stringValue is,

.string - Returns the String value if available else returns nil

.stringValue - Returns the String value if available else returns default value i.e "" (empty String)

So, getting the 'ppu' of first item belike,

let ppu = firstItem["ppu"].floatValue  

Methods

For String,

string Returns the String value if available else returns nil
stringValue Returns the String value if available else returns default value i.e "" (empty String)

For Int,

int Returns the Int value if available else returns nil
intValue Returns the Int value if available else returns default value i.e 0

For Float,

float Returns the Float value if available else returns nil
floatValue Returns the Float value if available else returns default value i.e 0.0

For Double,

double Returns the Double value if available else returns nil
doubleValue Returns the Double value if available else returns default value i.e 0.0

For Bool,

bool Returns the Bool value if available else returns nil
boolValue Returns the Bool value if available else returns default value i.e false

For JSON Object,

jsonObject Returns [String: JSON]?
jsonObjectValue Returns [String: JSON] else [:]

For JSON Array,

jsonArray Returns [JSON]?
jsonArrayValue Returns [JSON] else []

For Array,

array Returns [Any?]
arrayValue Returns [Any?] else []

For Dictionary,

dictionary Returns [String: Any]?
dictionaryValue Returns [String: Any] else [:]

Type Checks

Since JSON is a custom type, typecasting it to primitive types always fails, i.e,

let name = json["name"] as? String  // Always fails.

So is,

if json["name"] is String {  // Condition always fails.
    // Do something
}

Hence, SwiftJSONi uses inbuilt properties to check the type of values. Only these types will be accepted by JSON. Any other user-defined types cannot be used as JSON value.

isNull Returns true if the value is nil.
isString Returns true if the value is String.
isInt Returns true if the value is Int.
isFloat Returns true if the value is Float.
isDouble Returns true if the value is Double.
isBool Returns true if the value is Bool.
isJsonObject Returns true if the value is [String: JSON].
isJsonArray Returns true if the value is [JSON].
isArray Returns true if the value is [Any?].
isDictionary Returns true if the value is [String: Any].

So the above situations can be handled as,

if json["name"].isString {
    // Do something
}

Debugging

debugPrint() is used to pretty print the JSON in console. description is the valid JSON String for the corresponding JSON.

Author

Akaash Dev, [email protected]

License

SwiftJSONi is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.