Parse Plist (NSString) into NSDictionary

christo16 picture christo16 · Jul 2, 2009 · Viewed 29.7k times · Source

So I have a plist structured string, that get dynamically (not from the file system). How would I convert this string to a NSDictionary.

I've tried converting it NSData and then to a NSDictionary with NSPropertyListSerialization, but it returns "[NSCFString objectAtIndex:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x100539f40" when I attempt to access the NSDictionary, showing that my Dictionary was not successfully created.

Example of the NSString (that is the plist data):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> 
<plist version="1.0"> 
<dict> 
 <key>Key1</key> 
 <dict> 
  <key>Test1</key> 
  <false/> 
  <key>Key2</key> 
  <string>Value2</string> 
  <key>Key3</key> 
  <string>value3</string> 
 </dict> 
</dict> 
</plist> 

Thanks!

Answer

Peter N Lewis picture Peter N Lewis · Jul 2, 2009

See Serializing a Property List

NSData* plistData = [source dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSString *error;
NSPropertyListFormat format;
NSDictionary* plist = [NSPropertyListSerialization propertyListWithData:plistData mutabilityOption:NSPropertyListImmutable format:&format errorDescription:&error];
NSLog( @"plist is %@", plist );
if(!plist){
    NSLog(@"Error: %@",error);
    [error release];
}