Remove first byte from NSMutableData

Question

NSMutableData *requestData = (NSMutableData*)[request responseData];

returns

"[{JSON_STRING}]"

so I want to strip out the "[" / "]" without converting to NSString and then back to NSData. The easiest way to do this is to strip out the first and last byte.

[requestData setLength:[requestData length]-1]; removes the last byte.

How to remove the first byte? I tried the solution below, but doesn't work..

NSRange range = {0, 1};
[requestData resetBytesInRange:range];

Answer 1

Here's how you strip the first byte off an NSMutableData:

    NSRange range = NSMakeRange(0, 1);
[requestData replaceBytesInRange:range withBytes:NULL length:0];

Answer 2

You could use

NSRange range = NSMakeRange(1, [requestData length] - 2);
NSData *refinedData = [requestData subdataWithRange:range];

This should take care of both the first and last character.