How to write a valid boolean conditional in objective-c using objectForKey

Question

I'm seeking to understand why the following always hits the ELSE clause. What I can't figure out is that regardless of the actual value ( NSLog shows a 0 or 1) this always hits the else. Any reason why?

The item NSArray is pulled from a JSON object -fyi

BOOL* instock = [item objectForKey:@"itemInStock"];
    obj.instock = instock;
    NSLog(@"and it was %@", obj.instock);
    if (obj.instock == YES) {
      //do yes stuff
    }else {
      //do no stuff
    }

Answer 1

Your code here is rather strange. What is the type of obj.instock ? Your very first line

BOOL* instock = [item objectForKey:@"itemInStock"];

makes no sense at all. -objectForKey: doesn't return BOOL* values. It returns id . I'm guessing here that you're actually getting an NSNumber * back, and it just happens to work alright because an NSNumber * fits inside of a BOOL * (as they are both pointers). Similarly, obj.instock is likely to be an NSNumber* as well (if it wasn't an object of some sort, your NSLog() would crash).

So, assuming that obj.instock is an NSNumber* , the conditional you want is simply

if ([obj.instock boolValue]) {
    // yes
} else {
    // no
}

You should also fix this code to not try and claim you have a BOOL* when you don't.

Answer 2

In your NSLog , you are using %@ .
%@ refers to objects. Contrary to your BOOL* instock which is not an object.

There are ways to fix that.
What data type does your [item objectForKey:@"itemInStock"]; return?
If it returns an NSNumber for example, then you can do:

obj.instock = [[item objectForKey:@"itemInStock"] boolValue];
NSLog(@"and it was %d", obj.instock);
if (obj.instock == YES) {
  //do yes stuff
}else {
  //do no stuff
}

Again, there are other ways to do that.