Archiving works, but not unarchiving ?

[amuso]

I knew I would get into trouble doing this the "hard way" And I did!

Anyways, for exercise 19.4 I want to archive an addressbook with some cards. So I added encoding and decoding methods to AddressCard.h/m and AddressBook.h/.m. For the AddressBook it is a piece of pie since its just as illustrated earlier in the chapter. But for AddressBook I wanted to use my version where I use a mutable dictionary of cardFields instead of variables like in the chapter. And here I knew I would run into problem

Anyways, I get my program to archive data fine. But decoding them I just get (null) back. And if I replace the return cardFields; with return self; in the initWithCoder: method my AddressBook list: method crashes.

I tried to change the encode and decode methods into a for-loop to archive/unarchive all the cardFields data. Both archive (I had a peek in the addrbook.arch file). But neither unarchive anything.

The decode method with a for-loop doesnt even run the for-loop...

Here is my AddressCard.m. Attached below is the complete project with all sources. I think I am missing something obvious, but cant quite see what it is....

Code: (Objective-C)

//
//  AddressCard.m
//  Oppgave 19.4 side 452
//
//  Created by Odd-Jarle Kristoffersen on 12.11.09.
//  Copyright 2009 __MyCompanyName__. All rights reserved.
//

#import "AddressCard.h"

@implementation AddressCard

@synthesize cardFields;

// We need an initiator that takes all our arguments to set up an address card
-(void)	initWithFirstName: (NSString *) theFirstName
			  andLastName: (NSString *) theLastName
			   andAddress: (NSString *) theAddress
			andPostNummer: (NSString *) thePostNummer
			  andPostSted: (NSString *) thePostSted
				  andLand: (NSString *) theLand
				 andEmail: (NSString *) theEmail
			   andTelefon: (NSString *) theTelefon
				 andMobil: (NSString *) theMobil
{
	self = [super init];

	// If we could init ourself,
	// define which fields each addresscard has

	if (self) {
		cardFields = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
		
		[cardFields setObject: theFirstName		forKey: @"firstName"];
		[cardFields setObject: theLastName		forKey: @"lastName"];
		[cardFields setObject: theAddress		forKey: @"address"];
		[cardFields setObject: thePostNummer	forKey: @"postNummer"];
		[cardFields setObject: thePostSted		forKey: @"postSted"];
		[cardFields setObject: theLand			forKey: @"land"];
		[cardFields setObject: theEmail			forKey: @"email"];
		[cardFields setObject: theTelefon		forKey: @"telefon"];
		[cardFields setObject: theMobil			forKey: @"mobil"];
	}
}

// Synthesize getter/setters for all cardFields
-(NSMutableDictionary *) cardFields {
	return cardFields;
}

// Method to print an addresscard
-(void) print
{
	// We need a couple of length integers and a counter integer
	int i, flengde, elengde = 0;
	
	// theCard.firstname now has to be accessed [cardFields objectForKey: @"firstName"]

	// Allow foreign chars by creating new NSStrings for output
	NSString *fornavn = [NSMutableString stringWithString: [cardFields objectForKey: @"firstName"]];
	// We want to add spaces to these string to pad up for nice display
	// so we need a NSMutableString for them
	NSMutableString *etternavn = [NSMutableString stringWithString: [cardFields objectForKey: @"lastName"]];
	NSMutableString *adresse = [NSMutableString stringWithString: [cardFields objectForKey: @"address"]];
	NSMutableString *poststed = [NSMutableString stringWithString: [cardFields objectForKey: @"postSted"]];
	NSMutableString *landet = [NSMutableString stringWithString: [cardFields objectForKey: @"land"]];
	// Email doesnt require "treatment" since it can only contain regular US chars

	// Find length of the entire name
	flengde = [fornavn length];
	elengde = [etternavn length];
	// Pad ending with spaces until we reach 30 chars to get nice output
	for (i = flengde + elengde; i < 30; i++)
		[etternavn appendString: @" "];

	// Find length of address
	flengde = [adresse length];
	// Pad ending with spaces until we reach 30 chars to get nice output
	for (i = flengde; i < 31; i++)
		[adresse appendString: @" "];
	
	// Find length of entire zip / city output
	flengde = [[cardFields objectForKey: @"postNummer"] length];
	elengde = [poststed length];
	// Pad ending with spaces until we reach 30 chars to get nice output
	for (i = flengde + elengde; i < 30; i++)
		[poststed appendString: @" "];
	
	// Find length of country
	flengde = [landet length];
	// Pad ending with spaces until we reach 30 chars to get nice output
	for (i = flengde; i < 31; i++)
		[landet appendString: @" "];
	
	// Use %@ instead of %s to display our new local strings, except for email
	NSLog(@"====================================");
	NSLog(@"|  %@ %@ |", fornavn, etternavn);
	NSLog(@"|  %@ |", adresse);
	NSLog(@"|  %@ %@ |", [cardFields objectForKey: @"postNummer"], poststed);
	NSLog(@"|  %@ |", landet);
	NSLog(@"|  %-31s |", [[cardFields objectForKey: @"email"] UTF8String]);
	NSLog(@"|  %-31s |", [[cardFields objectForKey: @"telefon"] UTF8String]);
	NSLog(@"|  %-31s |", [[cardFields objectForKey: @"mobil"] UTF8String]);
	NSLog(@"====================================");
}

// We need to release our cardFields memory when we are done
-(void) dealloc
{
	[cardFields release];
	[super dealloc];
}

// Methods to encode/decode archive
-(void) encodeWithCoder: (NSCoder *) encoder
{
	for ( NSString *key in cardFields ) {
		// NSLog(@"%@ %@", key, [cardFields objectForKey: key]);
		[encoder encodeObject: [cardFields objectForKey: key] forKey: key];
	}
/*
	[encoder encodeObject: [cardFields objectForKey: @"firstname"] forKey: @"firstname"];
	[encoder encodeObject: [cardFields objectForKey: @"lastname"] forKey: @"lastname"];
	[encoder encodeObject: [cardFields objectForKey: @"address"] forKey: @"address"];
	[encoder encodeObject: [cardFields objectForKey: @"postNummer"] forKey: @"postNummer"];
	[encoder encodeObject: [cardFields objectForKey: @"postSted"] forKey: @"postSted"];
	[encoder encodeObject: [cardFields objectForKey: @"land"] forKey: @"land"];
	[encoder encodeObject: [cardFields objectForKey: @"email"] forKey: @"email"];
	[encoder encodeObject: [cardFields objectForKey: @"telefon"] forKey: @"telefon"];
	[encoder encodeObject: [cardFields objectForKey: @"mobil"] forKey: @"mobil"];
 */
}

-(id) initWithCoder: (NSCoder *) decoder
{
	NSLog(@"decoding...");
	for ( NSString *key in cardFields ) {
		NSLog(@"%@ %@", [decoder decodeObjectForKey: key], key);
		[cardFields setObject: [decoder decodeObjectForKey: key] forKey: key];
	}
	
	NSLog(@"%@", [decoder decodeObjectForKey: @"firstname"]);
/*
	[cardFields setObject: [decoder decodeObjectForKey: @"firstname"] forKey: @"firstname"];
	[cardFields setObject: [decoder decodeObjectForKey: @"lastname"] forKey: @"lastName"];
	[cardFields setObject: [decoder decodeObjectForKey: @"address"] forKey: @"address"];
	[cardFields setObject: [decoder decodeObjectForKey: @"postNummer"] forKey: @"postNummer"];
	[cardFields setObject: [decoder decodeObjectForKey: @"postSted"] forKey: @"postSted"];
	[cardFields setObject: [decoder decodeObjectForKey: @"land"] forKey: @"land"];
	[cardFields setObject: [decoder decodeObjectForKey: @"email"] forKey: @"email"];
	[cardFields setObject: [decoder decodeObjectForKey: @"telefon"] forKey: @"telefon"];
	[cardFields setObject: [decoder decodeObjectForKey: @"mobil"] forKey: @"mobil"];
 */
	return cardFields;
}

@end

[amuso]

I had an idea... is this a good approach? It works...

Code: (Objective-C)

// Methods to encode/decode archive
-(void) encodeWithCoder: (NSCoder *) encoder
{
	[encoder encodeObject: cardFields forKey: @"AddressCard"];
}

-(id) initWithCoder: (NSCoder *) decoder
{
	cardFields = [[decoder decodeObjectForKey: @"AddressCard"] retain];
	return self;
}

Of course it remains to be seen if I can search for a card in this archive and actually solve exercise 19.4 now...