How to access deeply nested dictionaries in Swift

Question

I have a pretty complex data structure in my app, which I need to manipulate. I am trying to keep track of how many types of bugs a player has in thier garden. There are te

Answer 1

Unfortunately none of these methods worked for me, so I built my own to use a simple string path like "element0.element1.element256.element1", etc. Hope this save a time for others. (just use a dots between name of elements in string)

Json example:

{
    "control": {
        "type": "Button",
        "name": "Save",
        "ui": {
            "scale": 0.5,
            "padding": {
                "top": 24,
                "bottom": 32
            }
        }
    }
}

Step 1, convert json String to Dictionary

static func convertToDictionary(text: String) -> [String: Any]? {
        if let data = text.data(using: .utf8) {
            do {
                return try JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: data, options: []) as? [String: Any]
            } catch {
                print(error.localizedDescription)
            }
        }
        return nil
    }

Step 2, helper to get a nested objects

//path example: "control.ui.scale"
    static func getDictValue(dict:[String: Any], path:String)->Any?{
        let arr = path.components(separatedBy: ".")
        if(arr.count == 1){
            return dict[String(arr[0])]
        }
        else if (arr.count > 1){
            let p = arr[1...arr.count-1].joined(separator: ".")
            let d = dict[String(arr[0])] as? [String: Any]
            if (d != nil){
                return getDictValue(dict:d!, path:p)
            }
        }
        return nil
    }

Step 3, use helper

let controlScale = getDictValue(dict:dict, path: "control.ui.scale") as! Double?
print(controlScale)

let controlName = getDictValue(dict:dict, path: "control.name") as! String?
print(controlName)

Returns

0.5
Save