Serialize and Deserialize Objective-C objects into JSON

Question

I need to serialize and deserialize objective-c objects into JSON to store in CouchDB. Do people have any example code for best practice for a general solution? I looked at a few JSON framework and they are stopped at the NSDictionary/NSArray level. i.e. A lot of framework will serialize and deserialize NSDictionary/NSArray into JSON. But I still have to do the work to convert NSDictionary into Objective-C objects.

To make things more complex, my Object A can have reference to an NSArray/NSDictionary of Object Bs.

My question is very similar to this question with addition of the collection requirement.

Instantiating Custom Class from NSDictionary

Answer 1

Finally we can solve this problem easily using JSONModel. This is the best method so far. JSONModel is a library that generically serialize/deserialize your object based on Class. You can even use non-nsobject based for property like int, short and float. It can also cater nested-complex JSON.

Considering this JSON example:

{ "accounting" : [{ "firstName" : "John",  
                    "lastName"  : "Doe",
                    "age"       : 23 },

                  { "firstName" : "Mary",  
                    "lastName"  : "Smith",
                    "age"       : 32 }
                              ],                            
  "sales"      : [{ "firstName" : "Sally", 
                    "lastName"  : "Green",
                    "age"       : 27 },

                  { "firstName" : "Jim",   
                    "lastName"  : "Galley",
                    "age"       : 41 }
                  ]}

1) Deserialize example. in header file:

#import "JSONModel.h"

@interface Person : JSONModel 
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *firstName;
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *lastName;
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSNumber *age;
@end

@protocol Person;

@interface Department : JSONModel
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSMutableArray<Person> *accounting;
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSMutableArray<Person> *sales;
@end

in implementation file:

#import "JSONModelLib.h"
#import "myJSONClass.h"

NSString *responseJSON = /*from example*/;
Department *department = [[Department alloc] initWithString:responseJSON error:&err];
if (!err)
{
    for (Person *person in department.accounting) {

        NSLog(@"%@", person.firstName);
        NSLog(@"%@", person.lastName);
        NSLog(@"%@", person.age);         
    }

    for (Person *person in department.sales) {

        NSLog(@"%@", person.firstName);
        NSLog(@"%@", person.lastName);
        NSLog(@"%@", person.age);         
    }
}

2) Serialize Example. In implementation file:

#import "JSONModelLib.h"
#import "myJSONClass.h"

Department *department = [[Department alloc] init];

Person *personAcc1 = [[Person alloc] init];
personAcc1.firstName = @"Uee";
personAcc1.lastName = @"Bae";
personAcc1.age = [NSNumber numberWithInt:22];
[department.accounting addOject:personAcc1];

Person *personSales1 = [[Person alloc] init];
personSales1.firstName = @"Sara";
personSales1.lastName = @"Jung";
personSales1.age = [NSNumber numberWithInt:20];
[department.sales addOject:personSales1];

NSLog(@"%@", [department toJSONString]);

And this is NSLog result from Serialize example:

{ "accounting" : [{ "firstName" : "Uee",  
                    "lastName"  : "Bae",
                    "age"       : 22 }
                 ],                            
  "sales"      : [{ "firstName" : "Sara", 
                    "lastName"  : "Jung",
                    "age"       : 20 }
                  ]}