How to convert a JSON string to a dictionary?

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Warning: this is a convenience method to convert a JSON string to a dictionary if, for some reason, you have to work from a JSON string. But if you have the JSON data available, you should instead work with the data, without using a string at all.

Swift 3

func convertToDictionary(text: String) -> [String: Any]? {
    if let data = text.data(using: .utf8) {
        do {
            return try JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: data, options: []) as? [String: Any]
        } catch {
            print(error.localizedDescription)
        }
    }
    return nil
}

let str = "{\"name\":\"James\"}"

let dict = convertToDictionary(text: str)

Swift 2

func convertStringToDictionary(text: String) -> [String:AnyObject]? {
    if let data = text.dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding) {
        do {
            return try NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(data, options: []) as? [String:AnyObject]
        } catch let error as NSError {
            print(error)
        }
    }
    return nil
}

let str = "{\"name\":\"James\"}"

let result = convertStringToDictionary(str)

Original Swift 1 answer:

func convertStringToDictionary(text: String) -> [String:String]? {
    if let data = text.dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding) {
        var error: NSError?
        let json = NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(data, options: NSJSONReadingOptions.allZeros, error: &error) as? [String:String]
        if error != nil {
            println(error)
        }
        return json
    }
    return nil
}

let str = "{\"name\":\"James\"}"

let result = convertStringToDictionary(str) // ["name": "James"]

if let name = result?["name"] { // The `?` is here because our `convertStringToDictionary` function returns an Optional
    println(name) // "James"
}

In your version, you didn’t pass the proper parameters to NSJSONSerialization and forgot to cast the result. Also, it’s better to check for the possible error. Last note: this works only if your value is a String. If it could be another type, it would be better to declare the dictionary conversion like this:

let json = NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(data, options: NSJSONReadingOptions.allZeros, error: &error) as? [String:AnyObject]

and of course you would also need to change the return type of the function:

func convertStringToDictionary(text: String) -> [String:AnyObject]? { ... }

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