Parsing JSON response in Swift 3 - json

Question

I've got an API endpoint that returns JSON in the following format:
[
{
"id": "1",
"name": "John"
},
{
"id": "2",
"name": "Jane"
},
{
"id": "3",
"name": "Nick"
}
]
I am trying to parse this in Swift 3, but I can only find examples to parse JSON formatted like so:
{
"blogs": [
{
"needspassword": true,
"id": 73,
"url": "http://remote.bloxus.com/",
"name": "Bloxus test"
},
{
"needspassword": false,
"id": 74,
"url": "http://flickrtest1.userland.com/",
"name": "Manila Test"
}
],
"stat": "ok"
}
, which has an extra level above what mine does.
So, where examples I've seen are simply parsing their data like jsonResponse["blogs"], I can't do that as my format is different.
How can I parse the format I've got, or how can I return a format that is easier to parse?
Any suggestions appreciated, thanks!

Answer 1

You can just do the following :
let data = // Data received from WS
do {
let json = try JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: data, options: JSONSerialization.ReadingOptions()) as? [[String : String]]
//json is now an array from dictionary matching your model
}
catch {
//handle error
}

Answer 2

This will parse it when placed in the network call.
do {
let json = try JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: data!, options: JSONSerialization.ReadingOptions()) as! [[String : AnyObject]]
let firstPerson = json[0]
print(firstPerson)
let id = firstPerson["id"] as! String
print(id)
let name = firstPerson["name"] as! String
print(name)
} catch {
//handle error
}
Also, I tend to be against advising third party libraries, but SwiftyJSON is an exception I make. If you want to try it, add this to your pod file:
pod SwiftyJSON', '3.0.0'
Documentation: https://github.com/SwiftyJSON/SwiftyJSON
EDIT - Answering Comment:
Replacement line:
if let id = firstPerson["id"] as? String {
print(id)
}
Replacement line (if you need to hold on to the value):
var thisId: String?
if let id = firstPerson["id"] as? String {
thisId = id
}
print(thisId ?? "")

Answer 3

i don't really know swift but there might be the equivalent of ajax json encoding (server side you json_encode your array and client side you json_decode the response)
the idea is to have the same formatter that encodes and decodes the data