Unable to convert UTF-8 text from NSDictionary in Objective-C

Question

Im using foursquare API to get some locations around me, but when the name of that place wasn't in english, the name will be like follows:

name = "\U0645\U0633\U062c\U062f \U0627\U0644\U0633\U064a\U062f\U0629 \U0639\U0627\U0626\U0634\U0629 | Aisha Mosque";

i tried to convert the response to a UTF-8 but nothing changed.

Here is my code:

-(void)setUpLocations{

NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString: @"https://api.foursquare...."];
NSData *data = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:url];
NSError *error = nil;
NSDictionary *json = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options:0 error:&error];
NSLog(@"Response: %@",[[[json objectForKey:@"response"]objectForKey:@"groups"]valueForKey:@"items"]);
}

And the log result is:

  contact = { }; id = 51712507498ec4e8c5ae9f48; likes = { count = 0; groups = ( ); }; location = { address = Abdoun; cc = JO; city = Amman; country = Jordan; distance = 3819; lat = "31.95406043797281"; lng = "35.88095228186612"; }; name = "\\U0645\\U0633\\U062c\\U062f \\U0627\\U0644\\U0633\\U064a\\U062f\\U0629 \\U0639\\U0627\\U0626\\U0634\\U0629 | Aisha Mosque"; restricted = 1; stats = { checkinsCount = 43; tipCount = 2; usersCount = 23; }; verified = 0; }, 

Any Suggestions ??

EDIT: here is how i extract the data from the dictionary:

NSDictionary *dic = [[[[json objectForKey:@"response"]objectForKey:@"groups"]valueForKey:@"items"] copy];

namesArray = [[NSArray alloc]initWithArray:[self removeWhiteSpaces:[dic valueForKey:@"name"]]];

-(NSArray *)removeWhiteSpaces:(NSDictionary *)dic{

NSString *str = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",dic];
NSString *str2 = [str stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"\n" withString:@""];
NSString *secondString = [str2 stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"  " withString:@""];
NSString *thirdString = [secondString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"(" withString:@""];
NSString *forthString = [thirdString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@")" withString:@""];
NSString *fifthString = [forthString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"\"" withString:@""];
NSArray *items = [fifthString componentsSeparatedByString:@","];


return items;



}

And in the UITableView :

cell.textLabel.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Name: %@ ",[namesArray objectAtIndex:indexPath.row] ];

Update

After trying @Martin R answer i got the same results:

NSDictionary *dic = [[[[json objectForKey:@"response"]objectForKey:@"groups"]valueForKey:@"items"] copy];
NSString *value =[dic valueForKey:@"name"];
NSLog(@"%@", value);
UILabel *lbl = [[UILabel alloc]initWithFrame:self.view.frame];
lbl.numberOfLines = 0;
lbl.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",value];;
[self.view addSubview:lbl];

and here is an image of the result

Answer 1

There is no problem.

NSLog() calls the description method of NSDictionary and NSArray , and that prints all non-ASCII characters as \\Unnnn escape sequence.

If you extract the string values from the dictionary and print that you will see that everything is correct.

Simple example:

NSDictionary *dict = @{ @"currency": @"€" };

NSLog(@"%@", dict);
// Output: { currency = "\U20ac"; }

NSString *value = dict[@"currency"];
NSLog(@"%@", value);
// Output: €

---

UPDATE: The problem seems to be in your removeWhiteSpaces: method, because

NSString *str = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",dic];

already uses the description method to convert the dictionary to a string, and the following stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString calls are a (sorry!) very bad method to fix that.

You should access the dictionary keys with objectForKey instead, or enumerate the dictionary with for (NSString *key in dic) { ... } and build the desired array.

---

UPDATE 2: From the JSON data (posted in chat discussion) it seem that you just need

NSArray *itemsArray = json[@"response"][@"groups"][0][@"items]; 
NSArray *namesArray = [itemsArray valueForKey:@"name"];

Note that "groups" is an array with one element.

Answer 2

尝试使用此。

[NSString stringWithUTF8String:]