A simple JSON to Object Model mapper for iOS

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This is Version 0.05. Please read the wiki page for more details. This code has been tested with iOS 7.0 and XCode 5.0. The library target's deployment target is set to iOS 7.0 with "Standard architectures (including 64-bit)..." as Architectures. You may need to reconfigure this as needed if you decide to integrate the whole project.

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What is KEJSONModel?

It is a convenient mapper that helps with mapping JSON messages to a hierachy/tree of NSObject-based objects, with as little repetitive coding as possible. For example, if you have a JSON that looks like this:

    { 
	"menuItems" : [{
			"id" : "1",
			"name" : "Teriyaki",
			"spicy_level" : "2",
			"review-count" : "4",
			"reviews" : [{
					"id" : "2",
					"text" : "This is awesome!",
					"rating" : "5"
				}]
			}],
	"status" : {
		"code" : "0",
		"localdesc" : "Everything is alright."
      },
    }

And you want to be able to just say these,

 	// data is the NSData representation of the above JSON message.
 	NSMutableDictionary *dict = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options:0 error:&error];
 	self.menu = [[Menu alloc] initWithDictionary:dict];
 	
 	for (MenuItem *menuItem in self.menu.menuItems) {
 		NSLog(@"id = %@", menuItem.itemId);
 		NSLog(@"name = %@", menuItem.name);
 		NSLog(@"spicy = %@", menuItem.spicyLevel);
 		NSLog(@"review count = %@", menuItem.reviewCount);
 		
 		for (Review *review in menuItem.reviews) {
 			NSLog("review id = %@", review.reviewId);
 			NSLog("review text = %@", review.text);
 			// etc.
 		}
 	}
 	
 	NSLog(@"Status code = %@", self.menu.status.code);
 	NSLog(@"Status Description = %@", self.menu.status.localdesc);

Then KEJSONModel can help you to do this more quickly and efficiently! The time saved will add up, if you have to deal with a lot of different JSON messages.

Under the hood, it basically combines the use of Objective C's powerful feature known as Key-Value Coding (KVC) and a bit of objective c runtime magic, to dramatically reduce the amount of boiler plate code you would need to write.

Why do I even want to do that??

If your app connects to a web service (such as Twitter), you will likely receive a response in JSON format, which can end up as NSString or NSData. Ideally, this data should be wrapped in an object, that have a set of properties, just like your other nice classes/objects. Your set (or hierarchy/tree) of such data-oriented classes/objects naturally form part of your "Model", in your overall MVC application architecture.

###How to use? Read the wiki for a quick walk through. Or just clone the project and take a look at the Unit Test (KEJSONModelTests) for a concrete example. The target built is a static library (with the header file included in "Copy Files" Build Phases). You can either integrate this library, or just drop the 2 files (KEJSONModel.h, .m) into your own project.

What's even more awesome?

Xcode has a lot of riches and treasures I have not yet learned to tap. The subclasses of KEJSONModel you have to write should have been auto-generated based on a single scan of a representative sample of the JSON message. This is somewhat similar to how you get all the NSManagedObject(s) generated from Xcode's Core Data Modeling tool with a schema. I will defintely work on this, but if anyone want to help, please let me know. It would truly make writing web service client app a lot more fun.

Licensing

KEJSONModel is licensed under MIT License. Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.