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409

answers:

1

Is it possible to use fast enumeration with an NSArray that contains an NSDictionary?

I'm running through some Objective C tutorials, and the following code kicks the console into GDB mode

NSMutableArray *myObjects = [NSMutableArray array];
NSArray *theObjects = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"easy as 1",@"easy as two", @"Easy as Three"];
NSArray *theKeys    = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"A",@"B",@"C"];    
NSDictionary *theDict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjects:theObjects forKeys:theKeys];
[myObjects addObject:theDict];

for(id item in myObjects)
{
    NSLog(@"Found an Item: %@",item);
}

If I replace the fast enumeration loop with a traditional counting loop

int count = [myObjects count];
for(int i=0;i<count;i++)
{
    id item;
    item = [myObjects objectAtIndex:i];
    NSLog(@"Found an Item: %@",item);
}

The application runs without a crash, and the dictionary is output to the console window.

Is this a limitation of Fast Enumeration, or am I missing some subtly of the language? Are there other gotchas when nesting collections like this?

For bonus points, how could I used GDB to debug this myself?

+3  A: 

Oops! arrayWithObjects: needs to be nil-terminated. The following code runs just fine:

NSMutableArray *myObjects = [NSMutableArray array];
NSArray *theObjects = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"easy as 1",@"easy as two", @"Easy as Three",nil];
NSArray *theKeys    = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"A",@"B",@"C",nil];    
NSDictionary *theDict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjects:theObjects forKeys:theKeys];
[myObjects addObject:theDict];

for(id item in myObjects)
{
    NSLog(@"Found an Item: %@",item);
}

I'm not sure why using a traditional loop hid this error.

andyvn22
Ah, one of my favorite Cisms. "The thing you thought was working correctly shouldn't have been". Thanks for the novice advice!
Alan Storm
If you turn on -Wformat (“Typecheck calls to printf/scanf” in Xcode), the compiler will warn about this. If you also turn on -Werror (“Treat Warnings as Errors” in Xcode), the compiler will fail the compilation over this mistake.
Peter Hosey
Thanks Peter, very useful!
Alan Storm