deep mutable copy of a NSMutableDictionary

Question

I am trying to create a deep-copy of a NSMutableDictionary and assign it to another NSMutableDictionary. The dictionary contains a bunch of arrays, each array containing nam

Answer 1

Useful answers here, but CFPropertyListCreateDeepCopy doesn't handle [NSNull null] in the data, which is pretty normal with JSON decoded data, for example.

I'm using this category:

    #import 

    @interface NSObject (ATMutableDeepCopy)
    - (id)mutableDeepCopy;
    @end

Implementation (feel free to alter / extend):

    @implementation NSObject (ATMutableDeepCopy)

    - (id)mutableDeepCopy
    {
        return [self copy];
    }

    @end

    #pragma mark - NSDictionary

    @implementation NSDictionary (ATMutableDeepCopy)

    - (id)mutableDeepCopy
    {
        return [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithObjects:self.allValues.mutableDeepCopy
                                                  forKeys:self.allKeys.mutableDeepCopy];
    }

    @end

    #pragma mark - NSArray

    @implementation NSArray (ATMutableDeepCopy)

    - (id)mutableDeepCopy
    {
        NSMutableArray *const mutableDeepCopy = [NSMutableArray new];
        for (id object in self) {
            [mutableDeepCopy addObject:[object mutableDeepCopy]];
        }

        return mutableDeepCopy;
    }

    @end

    #pragma mark - NSNull

    @implementation NSNull (ATMutableDeepCopy)

    - (id)mutableDeepCopy
    {
        return self;
    }

    @end

Example extensions – strings are left as normal copies. You could override this if you want to be able to in place edit them. I only needed to monkey with a deep down dictionary for some testing, so I've not implemented that.