Replace all NSNull objects in an NSDictionary

I'm curious, I currently have an NSDictionary where some values are set to an NSNull object thanks to the help of json-framework.

The aim is to strip all NSNull values and replace it with an empty string.

I'm sure someone has done this somewhere? No doubt it is probably a four liner and is simple, I am just far too burnt out to figure this out on my own.

Solution 1:

I've made a few changes to Jacob's original answer to extend it to handle dictionaries and arrays stored within the original dictionary.

#import "NSDictionary+NullReplacement.h"
#import "NSArray+NullReplacement.h"

@implementation NSDictionary (NullReplacement)

- (NSDictionary *)dictionaryByReplacingNullsWithBlanks {
    const NSMutableDictionary *replaced = [self mutableCopy];
    const id nul = [NSNull null];
    const NSString *blank = @"";
    
    for (NSString *key in self) {
        id object = [self objectForKey:key];
        if (object == nul) [replaced setObject:blank forKey:key];
        else if ([object isKindOfClass:[NSDictionary class]]) [replaced setObject:[object dictionaryByReplacingNullsWithBlanks] forKey:key];
        else if ([object isKindOfClass:[NSArray class]]) [replaced setObject:[object arrayByReplacingNullsWithBlanks] forKey:key];
    }
    return [NSDictionary dictionaryWithDictionary:[replaced copy]];
}

@end

And there's also an array category of course:

#import "NSArray+NullReplacement.h"
#import "NSDictionary+NullReplacement.h"

@implementation NSArray (NullReplacement)

- (NSArray *)arrayByReplacingNullsWithBlanks  {
    NSMutableArray *replaced = [self mutableCopy];
    const id nul = [NSNull null];
    const NSString *blank = @"";
    for (int idx = 0; idx < [replaced count]; idx++) {
        id object = [replaced objectAtIndex:idx];
        if (object == nul) [replaced replaceObjectAtIndex:idx withObject:blank];
        else if ([object isKindOfClass:[NSDictionary class]]) [replaced replaceObjectAtIndex:idx withObject:[object dictionaryByReplacingNullsWithBlanks]];
        else if ([object isKindOfClass:[NSArray class]]) [replaced replaceObjectAtIndex:idx withObject:[object arrayByReplacingNullsWithBlanks]];
    }
    return [replaced copy];
}

@end

With this, you can take any array or dictionary and recursively wipe out all the [NSNull null] instances.

P.S. For completion's sake, here are the header files:

@interface NSDictionary (NullReplacement)

- (NSDictionary *)dictionaryByReplacingNullsWithBlanks;

@end

And the array header:

@interface NSArray (NullReplacement)

- (NSArray *)arrayByReplacingNullsWithBlanks;

@end

Solution 2:

Really simple:

@interface NSDictionary (JRAdditions)
- (NSDictionary *)dictionaryByReplacingNullsWithStrings;
@end

@implementation NSDictionary (JRAdditions)

- (NSDictionary *)dictionaryByReplacingNullsWithStrings {
   const NSMutableDictionary *replaced = [self mutableCopy];
   const id nul = [NSNull null];
   const NSString *blank = @"";

   for(NSString *key in self) {
      const id object = [self objectForKey:key];
      if(object == nul) {
         //pointer comparison is way faster than -isKindOfClass:
         //since [NSNull null] is a singleton, they'll all point to the same
         //location in memory.
         [replaced setObject:blank 
                      forKey:key];
      }
   }

   return [replaced copy];
}

@end

Usage:

NSDictionary *someDictThatHasNulls = ...;
NSDictionary *replacedDict = [someDictThatHasNulls dictionaryByReplacingNullsWithStrings];