NSJSONSerialization results in EXC_BAD_ACCESS

Question

Currently I am writing an app (Target iOS 6, ARC enabled) that uses JSON for data transmission and Core Data for persistent storage. The JSON data is generated out of a MySQ

Answer 1

It looks like a bug/shortcoming with NSJSONSerialization. The problem is caused by the escaped unicode characters (freie_pl\u00e4tze instead of freie_plätze). You have two options -

1. Convert the escaped Unicode to real Unicode characters. Try this SO answer
2. Use another JSON engine, such as JSONKit. JSONKit also claims to be more performant than NSJSONSerialization.

Answer 2

I know this question has been answered but I think some beginners may have the same issue as me and be brought to this question.

The EXC_BAD_ACCESS message was caused by malformed JSON. As I had accidentally used the same name for an Object which causes issues when converting the JSON into a dictionary.

Annoyingly it didn't bring up a formatting error. Here is an example of the JSON that caused the issue:

"levels" : {
    "level1": {
        ....
    },
    "level1": {
        ... << All objects should have different names. This should be called level2.
    },
    "level3": {
        ...
    }

To fix the issue I had to ensure that all objects of the same level had different names.

Answer 3

Just tested NSJSONSerialization today. With iOS 7.1. It is working. No issue found. Looks like Apple fixed the issue.

NSString* jsonString = @"{ \"freie_pl\\u00e4tze\":null}";

NSData* jsonData = [jsonString dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

NSError *error = nil;
NSDictionary* jsonSerializationResult = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:jsonData options:NSJSONReadingMutableContainers|NSJSONReadingMutableLeaves error:&error];

NSLog(@"%@", jsonSerializationResult);