Swift - Reading JSON File - json

Question

I'm new to Swift - trying to read a JSON file from a URL. My attempt below.
The JSON looks valid - I tested it with JSONLint but it keeps crashing.
Thoughts?
func getRemoteJsonFile() -> NSDictionary {
//Create a new url
let remoteUrl:NSURL? = NSURL(string: "http://nfl-api.azurewebsites.net/myplayers.json")
//check if its nil
if let actualRemoteUrl = remoteUrl {
//try to get the data
let filedata:NSData? = NSData(contentsOfURL: actualRemoteUrl)
//check if its nil
if let actualFileData = filedata {
//parse out the dictionaries
let jsonDict = NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(actualFileData, options: NSJSONReadingOptions.AllowFragments, error: nil) as NSDictionary
return jsonDict
}
}
return NSDictionary()
}

Answer 1

This took me a second to figure out, so I don't blame you for missing it.
The JSON you linked to is minified, so it's difficult to see the structure. Let's take a look at (a fragment of) it after piping it through a prettifier:
[
{
"PlayerId":2501863,
"PlayerName":"Peyton Manning",
"PlayerTeam":"DEN",
"PlayerPosition":"QB",
"PlayerPassingYards":4727,
"PlayerPassingTDs":39,
"PlayerInterceptions":15,
"PlayerRushingYards":-24,
"PlayerRushingTDs":0,
"PlayerReceivingYards":0,
"PlayerReceivingTDs":0,
"PlayerReturnYards":0,
"PlayerReturnTDs":0,
"PlayerFumbleTDs":0,
"PlayerTwoPointConversions":2,
"PlayerFumblesLost":2,
"PlayerTeamLogo":"http://i.nflcdn.com/static/site/7.0/img/logos/teams-gloss-81x54/den.png"
}
]
Huh. It's encased in brackets, which means that it's an array.
It's an array, so you can't cast it as an NSDictionary. Instead, you could cast it as an NSArray, but why not use native Swift types?
Well, if you don't like types, you're about to find out, but I still think that this is a better way, because it forces you to think about the data you're parsing.
So we have the first part of our type definition for this function; it's an array ([]). What components is our array made up of? We could go with a simple NSDictionary, but we're doing full native types here, so let's use a native Swift dictionary.
To do that, we have to know the types of the dictionary (the syntax for a native dictionary type is [KeyType: ValueType]). Examining the JSON shows that all of the keys are Strings, but the values are of varying types, so we can use AnyObject.
That gives us a dictionary type of [String: AnyObject], and our entire JSON is an array of that, so the final type is [[String: AnyObject]] (wow).
Now that we have the proper type, we can modify the function you're using to parse the JSON a bit.
First of all, let's use our new type for the return and cast values. Then, let's make the return type optional in case something goes wrong and add an error variable to document that.
A cleaned up function would look something like this:
func getData() -> [[String: AnyObject]]? {
let data: NSData? = NSData(contentsOfURL: NSURL(string: "http://nfl-api.azurewebsites.net/myplayers.json")!)
if let req: NSData = data {
var error: NSError?
if let JSON: [[String: AnyObject]] = NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(req, options: NSJSONReadingOptions.AllowFragments, error: &error) as? [[String: AnyObject]] {
return JSON
}
}
return nil
}
That's it!
We can now call the function and extract values from our [[String: AnyObject]] (again, wow) like this:
if let data: [[String: AnyObject]] = getData() {
println(data[0]["PlayerName"]!) // Peyton Manning
}

Answer 2

Update your code with this:
func getRemoteJsonFile() -> [NSDictionary] {
// Create a new URL
let remoteUrl:NSURL? = NSURL(string: "http://nfl-api.azurewebsites.net/myplayers.json")
let urlString:String = "\(remoteUrl)"
// Check if it's nil
if let actualRemoteUrl = remoteUrl {
// Try to get the data
let fileData:NSData? = NSData(contentsOfURL: actualRemoteUrl)
// Check if it's nil
if let actualFileData = fileData {
// Parse out the dictionaries
let arrayOfDictionaries:[NSDictionary]? = NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(actualFileData, options: NSJSONReadingOptions.MutableContainers, error: nil) as [NSDictionary]?
if let actualArrayOfDictionaries = arrayOfDictionaries {
// Successfully parsed out array of dictionaries
return actualArrayOfDictionaries
}
}
}
return [NSDictionary]()
}
This is working fine for me.