Swift - Iterating over nested array of dictionaries

Question

I'm trying to build a personal app for fun using the grace note API for movies playing in theaters near me (JSON format). I'm able to make a call to the server and display what movies are showing. However, I'm trying to display the showtimes, which are embedded deeper in the JSON. I'll try to explain best I can, but the JSON response is:

Theres a root array of x dictionaries (however many movies are in the theater)

Inside each dictionary is a key 'title' which I'm getting and displaying in the table (working correctly).

What I'm getting stuck on is that inside each root dictionary, theres ANOTHER dictionary named 'showtimes'. Inside this dictionary theres x amount of dictionaries (however many times the movie plays in the theater). Inside each of these dictionaries theres a key 'dateTime' which is the actual showtime which I want to get and store into an array for each movie. The idea is to display something like '12:30, 2:45, 5:00,7:30' in the tableview cells detail text label.

Thank you in advance!

Please share your JSON response.

Manikandan D
– Manikandan D

2015-07-14 21:29:31 +00:00
Commented Jul 14, 2015 at 21:29 — Manikandan D
– Manikandan D, Commented Jul 14, 2015 at 21:29

driver733 · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-15 16:27:15Z

1

This will be a helpful resource for you. First of all, let me recommend you to use SwiftyJSON. It will ease up your work with json. Back to your question... (see my comments in code for clarity)

for (index: String, subJson: JSON) in json { // your whole json is an array, "[" in the beginning indicates that
     for (index: String, subSubJson: JSON) in subJson["showtimes"] { // in all "showtime" arrays: 
              self.<YOUR ARRAY>.append(getTime(subSubJson["dateTime"].string!))   // append processed value for key "dateTime" to <YOUR ARRAY>
            }
        }

func getTime(input:String) -> String {
    let dateFormatter = NSDateFormatter()
    dateFormatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm"
    let date = dateFormatter.dateFromString(input)
    let calendar = NSCalendar.currentCalendar()
    let comp = calendar.components((.CalendarUnitHour | .CalendarUnitMinute), fromDate: date!)
    let hour = comp.hour
    let minute = comp.minute
    return ("\(hour):\(minute)")
}

This will give you:

10:15
12:20
14:25
16:30
18:35
20:40
10:20
12:30
14:40
16:50
19:0  // not sure why this happens :(

edited Jul 15, 2015 at 16:27

answered Jul 14, 2015 at 21:43

driver733

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5 Comments

user3565259 Over a year ago

Thank you! I'll have to check it out

driver733 Over a year ago

I am actually working it out right now. I will let you know and will update my answer.

user3565259 Over a year ago

Thanks Driver. Really helpful. It'll be tough because Ill need to store the times for each movie in a separate array to display in the table, instead of one master array,

driver733 Over a year ago

You are welcome! I am not sure if you really have implement it in this way. Creating an array for each movie does not make much sence, as you could simply create one master array/dictionary/whatever for your table view. I advise you to check out this tutorial and this project before staring to implement your table view.

user3565259 Over a year ago

Yeah, ill have to look into it more. I think I'm just going to allow the user to tap on a movie and have it push to a detail view controller showing movie artwork, showtimes, and description. The JSON response being in arrays is kind of a pain as I can't just query the JSON response based on the name of the selected cell (its a grouped table view as I'm showing my 2 local theaters). Additionally, swiftyJSON seems to have issues with Swift 2.0, if you were not yet aware.

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