NSMutableDictionary sometimes shows value or key with quotes

Question

I am parsing a data file and adding the key-value read from the file into an NSMutableDictionary.

I have noticed that when I print out the content of the dictionary in the debugger, i.e: po myDictionary

some entries have quotes around them and some don't. Why is this?

For instance I see:

{
  "file_path"      = "../dat.txt"
  another_path     = "aa.dat"
  yet_another_path = bb.txt
}

I am using the following line to extract the key and value from the file, after parsing the data down to only the essential bytes

key_str = [[NSString alloc] initWithBytes:[data bytes]
                                   length:total_bytes
                                 encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

val_str is parsed the same way.

Thank you

Answer 1

You should not use the output of the -debugDescription or -description methods for the purposes of data archival. The format is an implementation detail and subject to change.

I would suggest that you look to NSPropertyListSerialization (and related) to solve your archival needs. It offers an XML format, if you need something akin to human readability.