Automatically populate all properties of an Objective C instance with a dictionary

Question

I have a class with properties that I would like to set values from a dictionary.

In other words, I would like to automate this:

objectInstace.val1 = [dict objectForKey:@"val1"];
objectInstace.val2 = [dict objectForKey:@"val2"];

with something like this (pseudo code):

for key, value in dict:
    setattr(objectInstance, key, value)

Answer 1

You can use the Key-Value Coding method setValuesForKeysWithDictionary:. It does precisely what you want. Just [someObject setValuesForKeysWithDictionary:propertiesDictionary].

Answer 2

ok unless I'm missing something why not create a method like:

setObjectProperties: (id) Object withValues:(NSDictionary *)dict

Answer 3

I've never done this, but this seems like it should work:

For each key in the dictonary:

NSString* setMethod = "set" + [key capitalizedString] + ":";  // This is pseudo-code.
SEL setSelector = NSSelectorFromString(setMethod);
[objectInstance performSelector:setSelector withObject:[dict objectForKey:key]];

(The code to form setMethod is pseudo-code & left as an exercise because Obj-C string manipulation is horrible.)