When you call -setObject:forKey:, it replaces the entire contents of that key,
whether the object is a number, string, dictionary, etc. That’s the same
behavior as if you called -setObject:forKey: on a regular dictionary when one
of its objects is, itself, a dictionary.
Depending on what you need to be doing, you could go a couple of routes:
1. Add a category on NSUserDefaults to handle getting/setting those values that
are organized in a sub-dictionary.
2. Create a custom class that manages all of your settings and don’t call
NSUserDefaults directly outside of that class.
I’ve tended to go with the latter method myself. It allows me to type the
property value, i.e., int or long instead of NSNumber*, or NSString* instead of
id; it allows me to range-check and otherwise validate values before storing
them; and it means that NSUserDefaults property keys are only managed in one
place so I don’t have to worry about key typos in other files that would have
me accessing the wrong value or an unknown value.
On Jun 18, 2014, at 5:22 AM, Jonathan Taylor
wrote:
> I currently have a plist which contains some configuration values; at start
> of day I use the following call to make certain "factory settings" available
> to the application through NSUserDefaults:
> [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] registerDefaults:[NSDictionary
> dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:configPath]];
>
> This works fine with single-object keys. i.e. I can include a key of type
> Number in the plist file, and it will be made available in the same way as
> other user defaults.
>
> However some of my user defaults are organised within a dictionary (e.g.
> there is a dictionary for each separate camera connected to the system,
> tracking user-controllable defaults such as chosen framerate). I would like a
> way to contribute factory settings from my plist for some of those key
> values. However if I include a dictionary in my plist, and separately call
> [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] setObject:aDictionary
> forDefault:@"my_camera_key"];
> then this dictionary object fully overrides the entire dictionary object that
> I supplied for my_camera_key in the plist. I had thought there was an outside
> chance that it would effectively merge the two dictionaries together, looking
> for a specific key first in the dictionary object in the user-specified
> defaults and then falling back to the dictionary object I supplied through
> registerDefaults. This does not appear to be the case though.
>
> Not sure if this makes sense - perhaps an example will help.
>
> plist supplied to registerDefaults contains:
> "my_camera_key"
> "my_camera_key"."key1" = 4
> "my_camera_key"."key2" = 5
>
> dictionary passed to setObject:forDefault:@"my_camera_key" contains:
> "key1"=7
> "key3"=1
>
> I had vaguely hoped that if I then called
> [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] objectForKey:@"my_camera_key"]
> then I might get back a dictionary containing three objects:
> "key1"=7
> "key2"=5
> "key3"=1
>
>
> Can anyone suggest how I might achieve what I am trying to do here? (Or
> suggest a better mechanism of doing what I want to do, i.e. maintain some
> sort of hierarchy to my defaults, but also be able to supply factory settings
> for objects below the top level of the hierarchy?
>
> Thanks for any suggestions
> Jonny
___
Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com)
Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list.
Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
