use string to reference a variable

Question

I have about 200 String values and each string needs to be placed into 1 of 20 arrays (sometimes more than 1). The data is all static and I know ahead of time which array I want each string to be placed into.

I'd like to create a plist to hold my strings. Each entry in the plist is a key-value dictionary. One key-value will be the string itself. But I also want to add an array to each dictionary, and the array will contain a list of the name of each array that the string should be placed into.

So I'm wondering, is there a way to reference a variable from my plist? I'd like to be able to just add a string into the plist with a value that is the name of my array variable. At some later time from my code, I want to retrieve that string from the plist and convert it into a reference to the variable with the same name. Any ideas how to do this?

Thanks!

Sunny

rob mayoff · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-18 20:08:35Z

1

You need a dictionary that maps an "array name" to the array object. For example:

NSMutableArray *redThings = [NSMutableArray array];
NSMutableArray *greenThings = [NSMutableArray array];
NSMutableArray *blueThings = [NSMutableArray array];

NSDictionary *arraysByName = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
    redThings, @"redThings",
    greenThings, @"greenThings",
    blueThings, @"blueThings",
    nil];

NSArray *plist = loadThePropertyList();

for (NSDictionary *item in plist) {
    NSString *theStringItself = [item objectForKey:@"theStringItself"];
    NSArray *arrayNames = [item objectForKey:@"arrayNames"];
    for (NSString *arrayName in arrayNames)
        [[arraysByName objectForKey:arrayName] addObject:theStringItself];
}

answered Nov 18, 2011 at 20:08

rob mayoff

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