Remove NSMutableDictionary entry

Hmm, not sure you need to use removeObjectForKeys

Okay so ultimately after you have your mutable dictionary you want to remove all @"anonymousUser" from the dictionary. Isn't @"anonymousUser" only under the profile_picture key?

I think the API uses an array of dictionaries. So you could loop through the array :

[[array objectAtIndex:i] objectForKey:@"profile_picture"]

Check the value and using the answer I gave in the other post, you can change it.

Hmmm... I realize this topic of removing an entry from a mutable dictionary is not well documented on net.

If I go for your method, I don't see how I can remove the entry all together. I don't want to replace the string, remove the entry without deleting all values referenced by the associated key.

Isn't there a "removeObject:" method in some way?

Would value seeing sample code.

Merci!

Okay I understand what you're trying to do alot better now. You want to remove the entry from the dictionary if it has a certain keyword:

    NSMutableDictionary * myDictionary =[ NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
    [myDictionary setObject:@"http://www.sdsdfsdfsdf.com/anonymousUser" forKey:@"profile" ];
    [myDictionary setObject:@"https://teamtreehouse.com/forum/remove-nsmutabledictionary-entry" forKey:@"random"];
    [myDictionary setObject:@"https://google.com" forKey:@"someUrl" ];
    [myDictionary setObject:@"test" forKey:@"someValue"];
    [myDictionary setObject:@"anonymousUser.png/blahblahblah" forKey:@"anotherValue"];


    NSArray*keys=[myDictionary allKeys]; //get all the keys

    for (int i = 0; i<[keys count]; i++) {

        if ([[myDictionary objectForKey:[keys objectAtIndex:i]] isKindOfClass:[NSString class]]) {
         //if its an NSString - don't want an exception if its another type of object

             if ([[myDictionary objectForKey:[keys objectAtIndex:i]] rangeOfString:@"anonymousUser"].location != NSNotFound) {

                 //if object has the key word im looking for
                 [myDictionary removeObjectForKey:[keys objectAtIndex:i]]; //remove the key
             }
        }
    }

This will remove any entry that has anonymousUser as a value

Hi Kerde,

Thank you so much for your help, and patience on this. This is much appreciated.

I implemented your code after creating a mutable copy of the NSDictionary that I get back from instagram (responseDictionary).

However, here is what I get after logging the results: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8erj76yxlrw8nq2/Still_Anonymous_After_CleanUp.png

As you can see, my anonymous entries are still there.

I am confident it's a minor tweak to get to the desired result.

Any other ideas?

Have a great day!

:)

Can you put a break point and see whats happening as it goes through the loop. Also send a screenshot of the dictionary object.

Sure!

It looks like I am going to learn something new soon. Great!

Here is a log of k1 which I defined as the count (of entries) in the NSDictionary delegate that I receive back from Instagram. For some strange reasons you can see that it is equal to 3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ksbc9pabybn0pb4/k1.png

Then I do the mutable copy of the NSDictionary delegate I get back from Instagram and store it into a NSMutableDictionary to complete the AnonymousUser lookup and cleanup.

I call k2 the number of entries in this dictionary, not surprisingly, before cleanup (the for loop) k2 is equal to 3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eqw9d75zzly1icf/k2_before.png

After cleanup, it's still equal to 3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rals66t84yju6fb/k2%28after%29%3D3but_friendsCount%3D191.png

Two things:

It should not be equal to 3 but to 191 which is the count of the "friends" NSDictionary where I store the cleanup version of the NSMutableDictionary. Since the for loop doesn't seem to start (NSLogs in that loop do not show up in my console for a reason I don't understand since we should have at least 3 loops since k2=3). When logging self.friends, set with the result of the cleanup, and looking at [self.friends count], number of entries in the friends NSDictionary... I get 191! (LOL)

There is clearly something new I am going to learn here. Not so sure what this is related to, most likely an obvious mistake on my end.

Thanks again for your help.

:)

k2 would still be 3. Where are you updating the k2 value after cleanup?

Also I think the issue is with the for loop using k2.

Shouldnt it be

NSUInteger * k2 = [keys count]; 

E.g 5 keys, loop 5 times, and at key position i, check if value is equal to anonymous etc

Well, the number of loops should be equal to the number of entries, and not keys, in the dictionary.

For each entry, we need to scrub against the "anonymousUser" NSString and remove that entry if there is a match.

What seems weird to me is that even with a number of loops, erroneous at 3 (k2 should be equal to 191, the numbers of entries I have in the NSDictionary), the loop doesn't start which seems to indicate that none of the keys in the dictionary is of type NSString. And that is not the case since most keys are NSStrings...

Well, I'll keep trying to figure that one out. Thanks again for your great help Kerde. :)

I am thinking of opening something on stackoverflow

@Kerde: for [keys count] I get 3.

Hi Kerde: Here is the structure of the NSDictionary I get back from instagram api:

{
        bio = "xxxbioStringxxx";
        "full_name" = "xxxnameStringxxx";
        id = 1234567890;
        "profile_picture" = "http://photos-c.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak-xpa1/stringidpicture.jpg";
        username = xxxusernamexxx;
        website = "http://xxx.blogspot.com";
    },

If you can find the time. I appreciate.