NSArray Equivalent of Map

Question

Given an NSArray of NSDictionary objects (containing similar objects and keys) is it possible to write perform a map to an array of specified key?

Answer 1

I'm no Ruby expert so I'm not 100% confident I'm answering correctly, but based on the interpretation that 'map' does something to everything in the array and produces a new array with the results, I think what you probably want is something like:

NSMutableArray *replacementArray = [NSMutableArray array];

[existingArray enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:
    ^(NSDictionary *dictionary, NSUInteger idx, BOOL *stop)
    {
         NewObjectType *newObject = [something created from 'dictionary' somehow];
         [replacementArray addObject:newObject];
    }
];

So you're using the new support for 'blocks' (which are closures in more general parlance) in OS X 10.6/iOS 4.0 to perform the stuff in the block on everything in the array. You're choosing to do some operation and then add the result to a separate array.

If you're looking to support 10.5 or iOS 3.x, you probably want to look into putting the relevant code into the object and using makeObjectsPerformSelector: or, at worst, doing a manual iteration of the array using for(NSDictionary *dictionary in existingArray).