Deserialize JSON / NSDictionary to Swift objects

Question

Is there a way to properly deserialize a JSON response to Swift objects resp. using DTOs as containers for fixed JSON APIs?

Something similar to http://james.newtonk

Answer 1

There's a great example by Apple for deserializing JSON with Swift 2.0

The trick is to use the guard keyword and chain the assignments like so:

init?(attributes: [String : AnyObject]) {
    guard let name = attributes["name"] as? String,
        let coordinates = attributes["coordinates"] as? [String: Double],
        let latitude = coordinates["lat"],
        let longitude = coordinates["lng"],
        else {
            return nil
    }
    self.name = name
    self.coordinates = CLLocationCoordinate2D(latitude: latitude, longitude: longitude)
}

I personally prefer native parsing vs any 3rd party, as it is transparent and magic-less. (and bug less?)