Simple and clean way to convert JSON string to Object in Swift

Question

I have been searching for days to convert a fairly simple JSON string to an object type in Swift but with no avail.

Here is the code for web service call:

Answer 1

For Swift 4

I used @Passkit's logic but i had to update as per Swift 4

---

Step.1 Created extension for String Class

import UIKit


extension String
    {
        var parseJSONString: AnyObject?
        {
            let data = self.data(using: String.Encoding.utf8, allowLossyConversion: false)

            if let jsonData = data
            {
                // Will return an object or nil if JSON decoding fails
                do
                {
                    let message = try JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: jsonData, options:.mutableContainers)
                    if let jsonResult = message as? NSMutableArray
                    {
                        print(jsonResult)

                        return jsonResult //Will return the json array output
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        return nil
                    }
                }
                catch let error as NSError
                {
                    print("An error occurred: \(error)")
                    return nil
                }
            }
            else
            {
                // Lossless conversion of the string was not possible
                return nil
            }
        }
    }

---

Step.2 This is how I used in my view controller

var jsonString = "[\n" +
    "{\n" +
    "\"id\":72,\n" +
    "\"name\":\"Batata Cremosa\",\n" +            
    "},\n" +
    "{\n" +
    "\"id\":183,\n" +
    "\"name\":\"Caldeirada de Peixes\",\n" +            
    "},\n" +
    "{\n" +
    "\"id\":76,\n" +
    "\"name\":\"Batata com Cebola e Ervas\",\n" +            
    "},\n" +
    "{\n" +
    "\"id\":56,\n" +
    "\"name\":\"Arroz de forma\",\n" +            
"}]"

 //Convert jsonString to jsonArray

let json: AnyObject? = jsonString.parseJSONString
print("Parsed JSON: \(json!)")
print("json[2]: \(json![2])")

All credit goes to original user, I just updated for latest swift version