Parsing Gravatar Profile JSON in Swift

Question

I am properly loading up my own profile information in an iOS Swift application, but the JSON has an object associated with it which is confusing me on how to properly parse it in order to access the data within it. Here is my method.

func attemptToLoadProfile(hash: String) {
    let url = "https://www.gravatar.com/\(hash).json"
    let fileURL = URL(string: url)
    do {
        let contents = try String(contentsOf: fileURL!)
        let data = contents.data(using: String.Encoding.utf8)
        let json = try? JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: data!, options: [])
        print(json!)

    } catch {
        print("error parsing json")
    }
}

This works fine, but when I print it out, the JSON is formatted like this.

{
entry =     (
            {
        displayName = edolecki;
        hash = <myhash here>;
        id = 1333520;
        name =             {
            familyName = Dolecki;
            formatted = "Eric Dolecki";
            givenName = Eric;
        };
        photos =             (
                            {
                type = thumbnail;
                value = "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/<myhash here>";
            }
        );
        preferredUsername = edolecki;
        profileUrl = "http://gravatar.com/edolecki";
        requestHash = <myhash here>;
        thumbnailUrl = "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/<myhash here>";
        urls =             (
        );
    }
);

}

How do I parse the JSON seeing there is that entry object at the root? I am after displayName, id, etc. I normally parse JSON without a more simplified root. I haven't seen this before.

Answer 1

The value associated with the entry key is just an array with one element. In this case, you can access json["entry"], cast it to a [[String: Any]] and access the first element [0]. Then you can access the things you want, like displayName and id.

A better way to do this is use Codable. Using QuickType, I generated this code:

struct Root: Codable {
    let entry: [Entry]
}

struct Entry: Codable {
    let id, hash, requestHash: String
    let profileURL: URL
    let preferredUsername: String
    let thumbnailURL: URL
    let photos: [Photo]
    let displayName: String

    enum CodingKeys: String, CodingKey {
        case id, hash, requestHash
        case profileURL = "profileUrl"
        case preferredUsername
        case thumbnailURL = "thumbnailUrl"
        case photos, displayName
    }
}

struct Photo: Codable {
    let value: URL
    let type: String
}

Then you can do this to parse the json:

let decoder = JSONDecoder()
let root = try decoder.decode(Root.self, from: data)
// e.g.
let displayName = root.entry[0].displayName

If you don't need any of the json KVPs, just remove it from the struct.