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 names, and the key is an alphabet (the first letter of those names). So one entry in the dictionary is 'A' -> 'Adam', 'Apple'. Here's what I saw in a book, but I'm not sure if it works:

- (NSMutableDictionary *) mutableDeepCopy
{
    NSMutableDictionary * ret = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithCapacity: [self count]];
    NSArray *keys = [self allKeys];

    for (id key in keys)
    {
     id oneValue = [self valueForKey:key]; // should return the array
     id oneCopy = nil;

        if ([oneValue respondsToSelector: @selector(mutableDeepCopy)])
        {
            oneCopy = [oneValue mutableDeepCopy];
        }
     if ([oneValue respondsToSelector:@selector(mutableCopy)])
     {
      oneCopy = [oneValue mutableCopy];
     }

     if (oneCopy == nil) // not sure if this is needed
     { 
      oneCopy = [oneValue copy];
     }
     [ret setValue:oneCopy forKey:key];

     //[oneCopy release];
    }
    return ret;
}

• should the [onecopy release] be there or not?

• Here's how I'm going to call this method:

  self.namesForAlphabets = [self.allNames mutableDeepCopy];

Will that be ok? Or will it cause a leak? (assume that I declare self.namesForAlphabets as a property, and release it in dealloc).

Answer 1

That code should work, but you will definitely need the [oneCopy release]. The new dictionary will retain the copied objects when you add them with setValue:forKey, so if you do not call [oneCopy release], all of those objects will be retained twice.

A good rule of thumb: if you alloc, retain or copy something, you must also release it.

edit: Since you are only dealing with arrays, you could do:

- (NSMutableDictionary *)mutableDeepCopy
{
    NSMutableDictionary * ret = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc]
                                  initWithCapacity:[self count]];

    NSMutableArray * array;

    for (id key in [self allKeys])
    {
        array = [(NSArray *)[self objectForKey:key] mutableCopy];
        [ret setValue:copy forKey:key];
        [array release];
    }

    return ret;
}

Answer 2

Assuming all elements of the array implement the NSCoding protocol, you can do deep copies via archiving because archiving will preserve the mutability of objects.

Something like this:

id DeepCopyViaArchiving(id<NSCoding> anObject)
{
    NSData* archivedData = [NSKeyedArchiver archivedDataWithRootObject:anObject];
    return [[NSKeyedUnarchiver unarchiveObjectWithData:archivedData] retain];
}

This isn't particularly efficient, though.

Answer 3

Because of toll-free bridging, you can also use the CoreFoundation function CFPropertyListCreateDeepCopy:

NSMutableDictionary *mutableCopy = (NSMutableDictionary *)CFPropertyListCreateDeepCopy(kCFAllocatorDefault, (CFDictionary)originalDictionary, kCFPropertyListMutableContainers);